


96 THE INSECT WORLD. 
wings, which serve for flight. Its head, narrow, supported by a 
well-defined neck, is provided with two composite, and two simple 
eyes. It requires, no doubt, to see very clearly, as it flies by 
night. It should not be caught without great caution. If 
you desire to examine it closely, when in the hottest part of the 
summer it comes in the evening, and flutters round the lights, 
you must be careful how you seize it, for it stings. The wounds | 
inflicted by it are very painful, more painful than those of the 
bee, and they immediately cause a swelling in the member 
wounded. 
As the Keduvius kills different insects very rapidly by piercing 
them with its long beak, it is probable that it secretes some kind 
of venom. But as yet the organ that produces this poison has not 
been discovered. However that may be, its beak is curved, and 
about the tenth of an inch long, the surface bristling with hairs. 
It is composed of four joints, and contains four stiff, lanceolate, and 
very pointed squamose hairs. 
This insect often attacks other little insects in the place where 
spiders spin their webs. When they walk on, or are caught in, 
the spiders’ webs, the spiders take care not to seize them, for they 
fear their sting. They prudently allow them to toss about in 
their nets, where they very soon die of hunger. The Reduvius 
is often seen, either a prisoner or dead, in the midst of a spider’s 

web. 
We will let a celebrated naturalist, Charles de Geer, that savant 
who has acquired more glory than any other since Réaumur, by 
his profound and persevering studies of the habits and organisation 
of insects, speak. De Geer was a Swede, and a contemporary ol 
Réaumur’s. Let us listen to what the Swedish Réaumur says 
about the Reduvius personatus :— | 
«This bug,” says Charles de Geer, ‘has, in the pupal condition, 
or before its wings are developed, an appearance altogether hideous 
and revolting. One would take it, at the first glance, for one 0: 
the ugliest of spiders. That which above all renders it so dis. 
agreeable to the sight is that it is entirely covered and, as it were 
enveloped with a greyish matter, which is nothing else but thi 
dust which one sees in the corners of badly-swept rooms, anc 
which is generally mixed with sand and particles of wool, or silk 
: 

