1896.] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEV/S. 3 



the more you scratch the more you want to. In about thirty- 

 six hours a little blister appears, succeeded by a scab the size of, 

 a split pea, the irritation gradually subsides, the scale falls in 

 about six weeks leaving a deep and permanent pit as in small-pox. 



Such is the usual course, but there are some more serious 

 records. A Georgia newspaper gives an account of a death from 

 blood poisoning caused by this Red Bug. Medical journals con- 

 tain notices of erysipelas of the lower extremities from the same 

 cause, and the writer knows of a certain gentleman, who shall be 

 nameless, who lay last Spring near two weeks in a Florida hotel 

 with his lower limbs soaked with tannin in glycerin and done up 

 in iodoform. Entire or comparative immunity from the Red Bug 

 is enjoyed by many of the long-time residents of southern 

 Florida, why, has not been ascertained absolutely,. but as they 

 seldom acquire flesh, and their skin become swarthy with a 

 leathery appearance, it may be that the larger sweat tubes con- 

 tract too greatly to admit of its entrance. 



As palliatives of the horrible itchiness, camphor, ammonia, 

 Pond's extract, etc.. are used with more or less success. If taken 

 in time the bug can be killed and the itch arrested. According 

 to an old gardener a good lathering with a strong soap before 

 retiring does the business, if used in the evening of the day of 

 infection, it being his opinion that the soap closes the pores and 

 smothers the bu^ before it has done much mischief. An effectual 

 mode of abortion if done in time, as the writer has witnessed, is 

 a good sponging with a solution of carbolic acid, one ounce in a 

 quart of water, after a good soap bath. 



The Red Bug is known from Florida to Texas, and northward 

 to Missouri and along the Atlantic coast to New Jersey, though 

 I never met with it there. My friend. Rev. Prof. Jerome Schmitt, 

 had a little engagement with it in southern Missouri. Mr. H. F. 

 Wickham felt one or two in Texas. It seems to have entirely 

 neglected Mrs. Annie Trumbull Slosson, as she does not mention 

 it, an omission highly improbable, as she always speaks in an 

 inimitable way of the many curious incidents attending her en- 

 tomological tours. Had she had an encounter with the aggres- 

 sive Red Bug, the narrative would doubtlessly have been in 

 sportive iambics or tragic verse, probably the latter. 



