Packard ] RELATIONS OF INSECTS TO MAN. 
71 
easily ascertained. If so, then they are as truly bird para¬ 
sites as the lice, to which they are (especially when young) 
not remotely allied in form and structure. That they (or a 
closely allied species) sometimes swarm in the nests of 
swallows, we have been informed by a gentleman in Iowa, 
who found a nest of swallows, as stated in the “ Guide to 
the Study of Insects,” on the outside of a court house which 
swarmed With bed-bugs ; and they were not confined to the 
nest, but flocked in the apartments, “frequently serving 
well pointed bills of ejectment against the legal gentlemen 
within.” They continued to trouble the occupants year 
after year until the stream of hemipterous life was traced to 
its fountain head, the swallows’ nests. The opinion that 
the bed-bug originally lived under the feathers of house- 
haunting semi-domestic birds is strengthened by the fact 
that a European species of Cimex lives on the body of the 
swallow, another on the bat, while a third is found in pigeon 
houses and is named from that fact the Cimex of dove¬ 
cotes (Cimex columbarius ). We have in this country a 
flat bodied red bug, closely allied to the true bed-bug,, but 
its habits are quite unknown. 
We need not tell harrowing tales of the disgusting habits 
of this scourge, for are there not fresh experiences in the 
minds of those who travel most in the more unsettled portions 
of our country, as well as the other parts of the globe ? A 
word or two on some less known traits of this creature may 
give some useful hints in dealing with it. The parent lays 
white oval eggs, and when the young bug is fully formed 
within it escapes by pushing off the end like a lid, as one 
pushes up a trap door. The young are at first whitish and 
transparent, the stomach being visible, usually red from being 
filled with blood, and at this time it bears a striking resem¬ 
blance to a louse. Westwood says that it is eleven weeks 
in attaining its full size. The adult is hard lived in a double 
sense ; its tenacity of life is only equalled by its viciousness 
7 
