34 PRINCIPAL HOUSEHOLD INSECTS. 



country with tlie earliest colonists, at Jeast Kalm, writing in 1748-49, 

 stated that it was plentiful in the English colonies and in Canada, 

 though unknown among the Indians. 



The bedbug belongs to the order Hemiptera, which includes the true 

 bugs or i)iercing insects, characterized by possessing a piercing and 

 sucking beak. The bedbug is to man what the chinch bug is to grains 

 or the squash bug to cucurbs. Like nearly all the insects parasitic on 

 animals, however, it is degraded structurally, its parasitic nature and 

 the slight necessity for extensive locomotion having resulted, after 

 many ages doubtless, in the loss of wings and the assumption of a 

 comparatively simple structure. The wings are represented by the 

 merest rudiments, barely recognizable pads, and it lacks the simple 

 eyes or ocelli of most other true bugs. In form it is much flattened, 

 obovate, and in color is rust red, with the abdomen more or less tinged 

 with black. The absence of wings is a most fortunate circumstance, 

 since otherwise th( re would be no safety from it even for the most 

 careful and thorough of housekeepers. Some slight variation in length 

 of wing i^ads has been observed, but none with wings showing any 

 considerable development have ever been found. 



A closely allied species is a parasitic messmate in the nests of the 

 common barn or eaves swallow in this country, and it often happens that 

 the nests of these birds are fairly alive with these vermin. The latter 

 not infrequently gain access to liouses, and cause the housekeeper con- 

 siderable momentar}' alarm. At least three species occur also in Eng- 

 land, all very closely resembling the bedbug. One of these is found in 

 pigeon cotes, another in the nests of the English martin, and a third in 

 places frequented by bats. What seems to be the true bedbug, or at 

 least a mere variety, also occurs occasionally in poultry houses.^ 



The most characteristic feature of the insect is the very distinct and 

 disagreeable odor which it exhales, an odor well known to all who have 

 been familiar with it as the "buggy" odor. This odor is by no means 

 limited to the bedbug, but is characteristic of most plant bugs also. 

 The common chinch bug affecting small grains and the squash bugs all 

 possess this odor, and it is quite as T)ungent with these plant-feeding 

 forms as with the human parasite. The possession of this odor, dis- 

 agreeable as it is, is, after all, a most fortunate circumstance, as it is of 

 considerable assistance in detecting the presence of these vermin. The 

 odor comes from glands, situated in various parts of the body, which 

 secrete a clear, oily, volatile liquid. The possession of this odor is cer- 

 tainly, with the plant-feeding forms, a means of protection against 

 insectivorous birds, rendering these insects obnoxious or distasteful to 

 their feathered enemies. With the bedbug it is probably an illustration 

 of a very common phenomenon among animals, the persistence of a 

 characteristic which is no longer of any especial value to the possessor 

 of it. The natural enemies of true bugs, against which this odor serves 



1 Insect Life, Vol. VI, p. 166, Osborn. 



