84 HEMIPTERA. 



brought to us by the way of the East Indies, 

 from whence is derived its trivial name of ori- 

 ent alis. It is fortunate for us, that the largest 

 of the genus, the B. gigantea, cannot be natu- 

 ralized, since the ravages it commits are such, 

 as to make it hardly bearable in a house. In tro- 

 pical countries, particularly in South America, 

 these insects commit the greatest depredations : 

 nothing comes amiss to them : they get at every 

 thing, and what they cannot eat they spoil with 

 their excrement. Drury describes them as be- 

 ing very fond of ink, into which they are apt 

 to fall, and soon become so offensively putrid, 

 that a man might as well sit over the cadaverous 

 body of a large animal, as write with the ink 

 in which they have died. They fly into the 

 faces and bosoms of persons, exciting by their 

 spiny legs a sudden horror not easily described. 

 They make a noise in the night like a smart 

 knocking with the knuckle on the wainscot ; 

 so that three or four of them will make such 

 a drumming, as to disturb the rest of those who 

 are not very good sleepers. Drury adds, that 

 the sick and dying have their extremities at- 





