
HEMIPTERA. 93 
one on the top of the other, their heads in the direction of a centre 
| point. They are clothed in black, spotted with red. In the 
neighbourhood of Paris the children call them “Swisses,” probably 
on account of the red on their bodies, that being the colour of 
| the uniform of the Swiss troops formerly in the service of France. 
(In Burgundy, the children call them “ petits cochons rouges.” 
| They will be found described in Geoffroy’s “Histoire des In- 
sectes,’’ under the name of the Red Garden Bug. At the present 
| comes, these little “ Suisses” take refuge under stones and the 
bark of trees to pass the winter. During the whole of that season 
they remain in a sort of torpid state. But in the first days of 
| spring they revive, and resume their ordinary habits. They suck the 
| sap of vegetables, piercing the capsules of divers kinds of mallows 
|and always keeping themselves turned to- 
| wards the sun. 
The bug, properly so called, or bed bug, 
| (Acanthia lectularia ov Cimea lectularius, F ig. 
| 70), amost disagreeable and stinking insect, 
‘abounds in dirty houses, principally in , 
|towns, and above all in those of warm 
}countries. It lives in beds, in wood-work, 
}and paper-hangings. ‘There is no crack, Fig. 70—Boa bug (Acanthia 
however narrow it may be, into which it ig = @*”#7#), magnified. 
unable to slip. It is a night bird, shunning the light. “Noc- 
turnum fotidum animal,” says Linneus. Its body is oval, about 
the fifth of an inch in length, flat, soft, of a brown colour, and 
covered with little hairs. Its head is provided with two hairy 
antennee, and two round black eyes, and has a short beak, curved 
directly under its thorax, and lying in a shallow groove when the 
animal is at rest. This beak, composed of three joints, contains 
four thin, straight, and sharp hairs. The thorax is, as it were, 
winged on the sides. The abdomen is very much developed, 
orbicular, composed of eight segments, very much depressed, 
and easily crushed by the fingers. The elytra are rudimentary. 
It has no membraneous wings. The tarsi have three articulations, 
of which the last is provided with two strong hooks. 

* This species is Lygeus militaris,—Ep. 

| day they are placed in the genus Lyg@us.* When the bad weather’ 


