Jan., 1913 
SWALLOWS AND BED-BUGS 
15 
calling it Oeciacus hirundinis. On writing Dr. L. O. Howard, Chief of the 
Bureau of Entomology, Department of Agriculture, for information, he gave 
me a reference to a record by Otto Lugger, State Entomologist of Minnesota, 
and published in the Sixth Annual Report of the Entomologist of the State Ex- 
periment Station of the University of Minnesota, 1900, page 52. This is as 
follows ; 
“Bugs, very similar to bed bugs, attack pigeons, chickens, swallows and bats. 
Those found in the nests of swallows not infrequently reach the inside of houses 
against which these beneficial birds have built their clay nests. Such bugs very 
closely resemble the genuine bed-bugs, yet are different when studied in detail ; 
they are much smaller, darker, and cannot exist for any length of time away 
from their proper home, the nest of the swallow, where they are sometimes ex- 
ceedingly numerous. * * 
“Since the above account was written [this having been copied from a pre- 
vious report] , another species of true bed-bug was found in a large school 
building in the western part of the state [Minnesota]. Here these insects became 
very annoying during winter, and especially near the warm steam-pipes : later 
they invaded all the rooms. It is a strange fact that an insect, usually dormant 
at that time, and certainly not active during the day, should so change its habits 
as to become a veritable trouble in midwinter, annoying students and teachers in 
broad daylight. This species is much smaller, and resembles the one found in 
swallow nests so closely that it may be identical with it.” 
It will be noted that this quotation does not say positively that these insects 
were the swallow bed-bug, nor is it stated if there had been swallows’ nests on 
school building. However that may be, it is evident that the insects were not 
the common bed-bug. 
Gedoelst, the author previously referred to, says concerning the swallow 
bug ; “Lives in the nests of swallows ; may enter houses and attack man.”* 
As for myself, the only evidence I can offer is of a negative character. In 
the summer of 1902 there were about thirty Cliff Swallows’ nests under the 
eaves of a one-story log house on the ranch of a friend near Crested Butte, Colo- 
rado. I frequently spent the night at the ranch, sleeping in this house, and on 
the same side as where the nests were, and was never disturbed by any insects. 
Another man slept there all the time, and never made any complaints. The 
cabin was built of dry aspen logs, full of cracks and crevices which would have 
harbored the parasites if they had been about. About this same time I occupied 
office and sleeping rooms in the town of Crested Butte in a building on which 
Cliff Swallows had nested, and had no trouble there. 
A lady living on another ranch near Crested Butte told me of having a few 
years previously destroyed the Cliff Swallows’ nests on the ranch house because 
of the dirt they made about the house, and regretted having to do it for the rea- 
son that the birds had been very useful in keeping down the mosquitos, which 
were a pest in the irrigating season. She spoke of the birds having begun to re- 
turn and build about the barns, and expressed her pleasure at that. I think that 
if she had thought the swallows guilty of having brought pests into her house 
she would have spoken of it to me. 
Of course it is not impossible that these colonies may not have been troubled 
with the parasite, and even that it does not occur at that altitude, 9,000 feet, but 
— its relative does. Not knowing of them at the time I did not look for them, 
*Synopsis de Parasitologic de I’Homine et des Animaux Domestiqiies. Par. L. Gedoelst. 
Bruxelles. 1911. 
