Let us not then hasten to generalize and to look upon the Reduvius as a licensed consumer of the stinking pest of our beds. I see an important objection to this special vocation. Comparatively large in size, the Reduvius could not slip into the narrow chinks that shelter the Bed-bug. A fortiori, to track the Bed-bug to its lair is impracticable for the larva, hampered by its overcoat of dust, unless it invade our beds at the time when the other is running over us and selecting its morsel. Nothing justifies our presuming this intimacy with the sleeper; no one, that I know of, has surprised the Reduvius or its larva in the act of investigating our beds. The masked larva does not deserve to be extolled for a few accidental captures. Its diet is quite different from what Linnæus tells us and the compilers keep on repeating. In its infancy it feeds on fatty matters, as my rearing-experiments prove. When it grows big it varies its victuals with insects, of no matter what order, as does the adult. For it a butcher’s garret is an abode of bliss, where it finds a supply of fats, and, later, Flesh-flies, Dermestes, and other insects that batten on dead things. In the dark and ill-swept corners of our houses it gleans the particles of fat that fall from our kitchen-table; it catches unawares the drowsy Fly, the small, homeless Spider. This is enough to ensure its welfare. Here is one more tradition to be deleted from our books, without much injury, however, to the insect’s reputation. If the Masked Bug ceases to appear in history as the executioner of the Bed-bug, it will henceforth cut a more respectable figure as the inventor of the box that is opened by the explosion of a bomb. CHAPTER III THE TEREBINTH-LOUSE: THE GALLS For curious methods of generation, the Plant-lice bear the palm. Nowhere shall we find anything to beat them unless we pry into the secrets of the sea. We must not look to them for remarkable feats of instinct. The humble, round-bellied Lice are incapable of such achievements; to these stay-at-homes the lifting of a foot spells an excess of emancipation. But they will tell us by what attempts, bewildering in their energy and variety, the universal law that governs the transmission of life has come into being. I shall consult the Terebinth-lice by preference. They are near neighbours of mine, a condition essential to frequent visits; they practise an industry, which is a not uninteresting addition; and they are crowded into sealed enclosures where we can follow the progress of the family without too much confusion. The shrub that feeds them, the terebinth, or turpentine-tree, abounds on the Sérignan hills. It is sensitive to the cold, a lover of stony wastes scorched by the sun. Its insignificant flowers are succeeded by pretty bunches of little berries, first pink, then blue, smelling of turpentine and beloved by the Redstart when migrating in autumn.