Fig. 3.—Cimex lectularius, male. × 15. (From Brumpt.)
The common bed-bug seems to have arrived in England about the same time as the cockroach—that is, over four hundred years ago, early in King Henry VIII’s reign. Apparently, it came from the East, and was for many years confined to seaports and harbours. It seems to have been first mentioned by playwriters towards the beginning of the seventeenth century. The sixteenth-century dramatists could never have resisted mentioning the bug had it been in their time a common household pest. It would have appealed to their sense of humour.
How the insect got the name of ‘bug’ is unknown. It has been suggested that the Old English word ‘bug,’ meaning a ghost or phantom which walked by night, has been transferred to Cimex. This may be so, but the ‘Oxford English Dictionary’ tells us that proof is lacking.
The insect is some 5 mm. in length and about 3 mm. in breadth, and is of a reddish- or brownish-rusty colour, fading into black. Its body is extraordinarily flattened, so that it can readily pass into chinks or between splits in furniture and boarding, and this it does whenever daylight appears, for the bug loves darkness rather than light. The head is large, and ends in a long, piercing, four-jointed proboscis, which forms a tube with four piercing stylets in it. As a rule the proboscis is folded back into a groove, which reaches to the first pair of legs on the under surface of the thorax. This folding back of the proboscis gives the insect a demure and even a devout expression: it appears to be engaged in prayer, but a bug never prays. The head bears two black eyes and two four-jointed antennae. Each of the six legs is provided with two claws, and all the body is covered with fairly numerous hairs. The abdomen shows seven visible segments and a terminal piece.
The bug has no fixed period of the year for breeding; as long as the temperature is favourable and the food abundant, generation will succeed generation without pause. Should, however, the weather turn cold the insects become numbed and their vitality and power of reproduction are interrupted until a sufficient degree of warmth returns.
Like the cockroach, the bed-bug is a frequenter of human habitations, but only of such as have reached a certain stage of comfort. It is said to be comparatively rare in the homes of savages, but it is only too common in the poorer quarters of our great cities. Its presence does not necessarily indicate neglect or want of cleanliness. It is apt to get into trunks and luggage, and in this way may be conveyed even into the best-kept homes. It is also very migratory and will pass readily from one house to another, and when an infested dwelling is vacated these insects usually leave it for better company and better quarters. Their food-supply being withdrawn, they make their way along gutters, water-pipes, &c., into adjoining and inhabited houses. Cimex is particularly common in ships—especially emigrant ships—and, although unknown to the aboriginal Indians of North America, it probably entered that continent with the ‘best families’ in the Mayflower.
Perhaps the most disagreeable feature of the bed-bug is that it produces an oily fluid which has a quite intolerable odour; the glands secreting this fluid are situated in various parts of the body. The presence of such glands in free-living Hemipterous insects is undoubtedly a protection—birds will not touch them. One, however, fails to see the use of this property in the bed-bug. At any rate, it does not deter cockroaches and ants, as well as other insects, from devouring the Cimex. There is a small black ant in Portugal which is said to clear a house of these pests in a few days, but one cannot always command the services of this small black ant.
Another remarkable feature is that the insect has no wings, although in all probability its ancestors possessed these useful appendages. As the American poet says:—
The Lightning-bug has wings of gold,