THE AJvlERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



8': 



No doubt dog-fleas, if they shift their quarters 

 f.iom dog to man, may cause considerable irrita- 

 tion upon tlie linnian skin for a few days, or even 

 weclcs, just as chicken-lice, under similar cir- 

 cumstances, will sometimes do ; but that they 

 can increase and multiply upon such unnatural 

 food as human blood is an entomological im- 

 possibility. 



The Chigoe, on Jkjceu {Ptilex penetrans, 

 Linn.). — This is a true flea, but diflers from the 

 commou flea in burrowing into the human skin, 

 usually under the toe-nails, where it propagate* 

 its species, and thereby causes ulcerated swell- 

 ings, and in some cases, if neglected, even death. 

 It occurs in profusion in Cuba, Hayti, and other 

 parts of Central America, but is not found in the 

 United States. The minute and almost mici-o- 

 scopic creature, which often goes by the name of 

 "jigger" in the more southerly parts of the 

 Union, is not a true flea, nor even a true insect, 

 but a harvest-bug {Leptus), belonging to the 

 same class as the spiders and mites. [See 

 Amesican En-tomologist, vol. 1, p. 38.] 



The Bed-Bug {Acanthia lectularin, Linn.) — 

 We presume that but few of our readers would 

 require a ligure of this insect, iu order to enable 

 them to recognize it. It belongs to the true 

 Bugs {Hetei'optera) , but, like certain other 

 species of that order, is remarkable for having 

 only rudimentary wings and wing-cases. Its 

 habits are unfortunately but too well known to 

 almost everybody in the United States, and 

 especially to those who travel upon AV'estern 

 steamboats. Ordinarily the Bed-bug is confined 

 to the dwelling places of man, and lives on the 

 blood of us great Lords of the Creation ; but we 

 have known it to swarm in prodigious numbers 

 in a chicken-house, where it must have fed ex- 

 clusively upon cliickens' blood ; and it is said to 

 occur also iu European pigeon-houses. In the 

 whole course of our collecting we have never 

 met with a single specimen in the woods or the 

 fields, though many persons have assured us 

 that it abounds under loose bark in the woods. 

 Such persons, however, not being familiar with 

 entomology, have most probably been deceived 

 by the strong general resemblance to the Bed- 

 bug borne by a beetle which is commonly found 

 under bark (Prometopia O-maculala, Say), but 

 which, unlike the bed-bug, always has complete 

 Avings and complete shelly wing-cases. 



Like almost all other insects, the Bed-bug has 

 its insect foes. We have been informed by an 

 old experienced steamboat captain, Edw. H. 

 Beebe, of Galena, Ills., that whenever steam- 

 boats on the lower Mississippi become infested 

 by Cockroaches {Blatta family), tlie Bed-bugs 



are very soon exterminated. Unfortunately, 

 however, in this case the remedy is worse than 

 the disease. 



[Fig. 73.] 



Colors— (a) black .and tawny yellow; (ii) brown-black; 

 (c) brown 



It was long ago ascertained by the best Euro- 

 pean entomologists, such as LinntEus,Fabricius, 

 and DeGeer, that a cannibal bug {Beduvius per- 

 sonafus, Linn., Fig. 73, b) commonly haunts 

 houses in Europe for the sake of preying upon the 

 Bed-bug, and that its larva (Fig. 73, c) , which is 

 remarkable for being covered with a glutinous 

 substance to which little pieces of dust and dirt 

 usually adhere,* inhabits beds in Europe with 

 the same object in view. No insect having these 

 very commendable propensities has hitherto 

 been discovered in America. But we have our- 

 selves found the Two-spotted Corsair (Pirates 

 biguttatus, Say, Fig. 73, a) alive and kicking be- 

 tween the mattresses of a bug-infested bed in 

 South Illinois ; and, as this species is closely al- 

 lied to that which notoriously preys upon Bed- 

 bugs iu Europe, we infer that it has the same 

 very gratifying habits. At all events, we know 

 from its structure that it is a cannibal, and not a 

 vegetable-feeding insect; and a very similar 

 species of the same genus, but of a uniform 

 black color (Pirates picipes, H. Sch.), is com- 

 mon in the West under stones and prostrate logs, 

 and feeds there upon various subterranean in- 

 sects. 



The Two-spotted Corsair, as we are informed 

 by Mr. Uhler, is commou iu Mexico, and is also 

 found in Louisiana, Texas, and California. 

 Hitherto it has never been met with so far north 

 as Illinois, and we may therefore consider it as 

 a Southern species. Housewives in the South, 

 and other parties concerned, if they And this 

 prettily marked bug among their bed-clothes, 

 will now know what he is there for, and will 

 exercise their own discretion as to whether or 

 not he ought to be slain. 



The Br.oOD-sucKiNG Coxe-nose, or Big Bed- 

 bug (Fig. 74 «, Conorhinus sanguisuga, Le 



•The larva of another species belonging to the same family, 

 which inhabits trees (Evagoras viridis, ligured in the Amek. 

 Entosi., No. 1, p. 18), has the same peculiarity. 



