
INSECTS AND DISEASE 
the shell, are laid in cracks and crevices in beds and in bedrooms. 
These eggs hatch in about a week. The young resemble the adults, 
except in size, and there is no pupal stage. After molting five times, 
the adult stage is reached; this growth takes a month or more, 
depending on temperature conditions and the amount of available 
food—the blood of man, and, if necessary, of other warm-blooded 
animals such as mice and poultry. Bed-bugs have been kept alive 
and active for a year in a tight box without any food at all. Kero- 
sene, gasolene and benzine are effective remedies, if forced into the 
crevices where the bugs hide by day. The treatment should be 
repeated at intervals of about a week, since the eggs often withstand 
this treatment. For killing them on a large scale, there is nothing 
better than fumigation with hydrocyanic acid gas, but this is a deadly 
poison for man as well and should be used with caution. Those 
desirous of trying it should write to their State Entomologist or to 
the Bureau of Entomology, United States Department of Agriculture, 
for detailed instructions. 
The bed-bug has a few natural enemies; these enemies are, 
however, not greatly to be preferred to the bed-bug itself. “‘Kissing 
bug,’ of much newspaper fame a few years ago, is a name applied to 
several insects which prey upon the better known pest. The “‘masked 
bed-bug hunter,’ Reduvius personatus, is one of these. The “big 
bed-bug’’ of the South, 7riantoma (—Conorhinus) sanguisuga, is much 
more given to sucking human blood. “‘It is about an inch long; 
black, marked with red on the sides of the prothorax, at the base 
and apex of the front wings, and at the sides of the abdomen; the 
head is long, narrow, cylindrical, and thickest behind the eyes. It is 
said that the effects of its bite may last for nearly a year, and it is 
probable that attacks which are attributed to spiders are really the 
work of this insect. Out-of-doors, it feeds on insects, including 
grasshoppers and potato beetles’ (Lutz, ‘““Field Book of Insects’). 
