INSECTS AND WAR n 



The common bed-bug seems to have arrived 

 in England about the same time as the cock- 

 roach, that is, over four hundred years ago, early 

 in King Henry VIII/s reign. Apparently it 

 came from the East, and was for many years 

 confined to seaports and harbours. It seems 

 to have been first mentioned by playwriters 

 towards the beginning of the seventeenth century. 

 The sixteenth-century dramatists could never 

 have resisted mentioning the bug had it been 

 in their time a common household pest. It 

 would have appealed to their sense of humour. 



How the insect got the name of " bug " is 

 unknown. It has been suggested that the Old 

 English word " bug/' meaning a ghost or phan- 

 tom which walked by night, has been transferred 

 to Cimex. This may be so, but the " Oxford 

 English Dictionary " tells us that proof is lacking. 



The insect is some 5 mm. in length, and about 

 3 mm. in breadth, and is of a reddish- or brownish- 

 rusty colour, fading into black. Its body is 

 extraordinarily flattened, so that it can readily 

 pass into chinks or between splits in furniture 

 and boarding, and this it does whenever day- 

 light appears, for the bug loves darkness rather 

 than light because its deeds are evil. The head 



