Birds, bats, and poultry are attacked in various parts of the world by a considerable number of parasitic bugs, closely related to the bedbug, which live on their hosts and in nests and about roosting places. One of these species, occurring abundantly in southwestern United States and Mexico,[2] probably originally a parasitic messmate on birds and bats, has come to be an unmitigated poultry pest, and from the close association in these regions between poultry and human beings, is often a serious house pest--more so even than the true bedbug. Others of the species infesting birds and bats may also on occasion become house pests. For example, the nests of the common barn or eaves swallow of this country often swarm with the barn-swallow bug,[3] and from such nests under the eaves of dwelling houses these bugs sometimes gain entrance to houses and beds and are the cause of much annoyance. Similarly a species,[4] normally a parasite of birds and bats in the Old World, and also in Brazil and the West Indies, not infrequently becomes a human parasite. [2] (_Cimex_) _Haematosiphon inodora_ Dugès. [3] (_Cimex_) _Oeciacus hirundinis_ Jenyns. [4] _Cimex hemipterus_ Fab. (synonym, _rotundatus_ Sign.). =GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS.= The bedbug belongs to the order Hemiptera, which includes the true bugs or piercing insects, characterized by possessing a piercing and sucking beak. The bedbug is to man what the chinch bug is to grains or the squash bug to cucurbs. Like nearly all the insects parasitic on animals, however, it is degraded structurally, its parasitic nature and the slight necessity for extensive locomotion having resulted, after many ages doubtless, in the loss of wings and the assumption of a comparatively simple structure. Before feeding, the adult (fig. 2) is much flattened, oval, and in color is rust red, with the abdomen more or less tinged with black. When engorged the body becomes much bloated and elongated and brightly colored from the ingested blood. The wings are represented by the merest rudiments, barely recognizable pads, and the simple eyes or ocelli of most other true bugs are lacking. The absence of wings is a most fortunate circumstance, since otherwise there would be no safety from it even for the most careful of housekeepers. Some slight variation in length of wing pads has been observed, but none with wings showing any considerable development has ever been found. [Illustration: Fig. 2.--Bedbug: Adult before engorgement. Much enlarged. (Author's illustration.)] =THE "BUGGY" ODOR.=