96 THE INSECT WORLD. 
zontal hemelytra crossed over each other, and very fully developed. 
wings, which serve for flight. Its head, narrow, supported by a 
well-defined neck, is provided with two composite and two simple 
eyes. It requires, no doubt, to see very clearly, as it flies by 
night. It should not be caught without great caution. If 
you desire to examine it closely, when in the hottest part of the 
summer it comes in the evening, and flutters round the lights, 
you must be careful how you seize it; for it bites. The wounds 
inflicted by it are very painful, more painful than those of the 
bee, and they immediately cause a numbness in the member 
wounded. 
As the Reduvius kills different insects very rapidly by piercing 
them with its long beak, it is probable that it secretes some kind 
of venom. But as yet the organ that produces this poison has not 
been discovered. However that may be, its beak is curved, and 
about the tenth of an inch long, the surface bristling with hairs. 
It is composed of three joints, and contains four stiff, lanceolate, 
and very pointed squamose hairs. 
This insect often seeks its prey in places where spiders spin 
their webs. When they walk on, or are caught in, the spiders’ 
webs, the spiders take care not to seize them, for they fear their 
bite. They prudently allow them to toss about in their nets, 
where they very soon die of hunger. The Reduvius is often seen, 
either a prisoner or dead, in the midst of a spider’s web. 
We will let a celebrated naturalist, Charles De Geer, that savant 
who has acquired more glory than any other since Réaumur, by 
his profound and persevering studies of the habits and organisation 
of insects, speak. De Geer was a Swede, and a contemporary of 
Réaumur’s. Let us listen to what the Swedish Réaumur says 
about the Reduvius personatus :— 
“This bug,” says Charles de Geer, “has, in the pupal condition, 
or before its wings are developed, an appearance altogether hideous 
and revolting. One would take it, at the first glance, for one of 
the ugliest of spiders. That which above all renders it so dis- 
agreeable to the sight is that it is entirely covered, and, as it were, 
enveloped with a greyish matter, which is nothing else but the 
dust which one sees in the corners of badly-swept rooms, and 
which is generally mixed with sand and particles of wool, or silk, 
