Cone-nosed Bugs 93 



the food of the immature forms being other insects. Immature 

 specimens are rarely found indoors. It winters both in the partly 

 grown and adult stage, often under the bark of trees or in any 

 similar protection, and only in its nocturnal spring and early 

 Slimmer flights does it attack men. Marlatt states that this insect 

 seems to be decidedly on the increase in the region which it parti- 

 cularly infests, — the plains region from Texas northward and west- 

 ward. In California a closely related species of similar habits is 

 known locally as the "monitor bug." 



The effect of the bite of the giant bed-bug on man is often very 

 severe, a poisonous saliva apparently being injected into the wound. 

 We have discussed this phase of the subject more fully under the 

 head of poisonous insects. 



Conorhinus megistus is a Brazilian species very commonly attack- 

 ing man, and of special interest since Chagas has shown that it is 

 the carrier of a trypanosomiasis of man. Its habits and life history 

 have been studied in detail by Neiva, (1910). 



This species is now pre-eminently a household insect, depositing 

 its eggs in cracks and crevices in houses, though this is a relatively 

 recent adaptation. The nymphs emerge in from twenty to forty 

 days, depending upon the temperature. There are five nymphal 

 stages, and as in the case of true bed-bugs, the duration of these is 

 very greatly influenced by the availability of food and by tempera- 

 ture. Neiva reckons the entire life cycle, from egg to egg, as requir- 

 ing a minimum of three hundred and twenty-four days. 



The nymphs begin to suck blood in three to five days after hatch- 

 ing. They usually feed at night and in the dark, attacking especially 

 the face of sleeping individuals. The bite occasions but little pain. 

 The immattu-e insects live in cracks and crevices in houses and 

 invade the beds which are in contact with walls, but the adults are 

 active flyers and attack people sleeping in hammocks. The males 

 as well as the females are blood suckers. 



Like many blood-sucking forms, Conorhinus megistus can endure 

 for long periods without food. Neiva received a female specimen 

 which had been for fifty-seven days alive in a tightly closed box. 

 They rarely feed on two consecutive days, even on small quantities 

 of blood, and were never seen to feed on three consecutive days. 



Methods of control consist in screening against the adult bugs, 

 and the elimination of crevices and such hiding places of the nymphs. 

 Where the infestation is considerable, fumigation with sulphur is 

 advisable. 



