CHAPTER IV 



HEMIPTEEA. 



Bugs. — Squash-Bug. — Chinch-Bug. — Plant-Bugs. — Harvest-Flies. — 

 Tree-Hoppers. — Leaf-Hoppers. — Vine-Hopper. — Bean-Hopper. — 

 Thrips. — Plant-Lice. — American Blight. — Enemies of Plant-Lice. 

 — Bark-Lice. 



THE word bug seems originally to have been used for 

 any frightful object, whether real or imaginary, whose 

 appearance was to be feared at night. It was applied in the 

 same sense as bugbear, and also as a term of contempt for 

 something disagreeable or hateful. In later times it became, 

 with the common people, a general name for insects, which, 

 being little known, were viewed with dislike or terror. At 

 present, however, we can say, with L'Estrange, though 

 " we have a horror for uncouth monsters, upon experience 

 all these bugs grow familiar and easy to us." We would 

 except from this remark those domestic nocturnal species to 

 which the name is now applied by way of pre-eminence ; the 

 real, by an easy transition in the use of language, having 

 assumed the name of the imaginary objects of terror and 

 disgust by night. 



Entomologists now use the word bug for various kinds of 

 insects, all, like the bed-bug, having the mouth provided with 

 a slender beak, which, when not in use, is bent under the 

 body, and lies upon the breast between the legs % This 

 instrument consists of a horny sheath, containing, in a groove 

 along its upper surface, three stiff bristles as sharp as needles. 

 Bugs have no jaws, but live by sucking the juices of animals 

 and plants, which they obtain by piercing them with their 



