Dark Banquet - Bill Schutt [115]
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†101 According to Usinger, both of the Quintus Serenus verses were quoted by T. Mouffet in 1634 and translated by E. Topsel in 1658.
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*102 Hopefully the name referred to the French translation (“peerless”) and has nothing to do with those chocolate drops covered with little white pellets of sugar.
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†103 Firr is an Old English take on the word fir and refers to evergreen conifers of the genus Abies. These trees are generally considered unsuitable for use as timber.
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*104 There are significant parallels between blood feeding and sap feeding in bugs. They both employ hypodermically sharp mouth parts to tap into nutritious fluids, pumped under relatively high pressure, through special vessels (blood and phloem vessels, respectively). Additionally, both techniques commonly transmit pathogens to the food source—harming them.
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*105 Other vestigial organs of note include hind limb claws (or spurs) in pythons and boa constrictors and teeth in the developmental stages of toothless baleen whales (like the blue whale) and some anteaters. In humans, there’s the coccyx (formerly caudal or tail vertebrae in our distant ancestors) and the vermiform appendix (the remains of a larger, endosymbiont-laden, intestinal out-pocket called the cecum). Additionally, wisdom teeth are an indication that natural selection had an easier time making our jaws shorter than it did decreasing the number of teeth in those jaws. And stress-induced goose bumps apparently functioned to raise the hairs of our ancestors, making them look larger in the presence of predators, potential enemies, or competitors.
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†106 The term bug bear (Henry IV) was an early term for “scarecrow” or “bogeyman.”
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*107To some researchers, this makes them blood-feeding predators and not parasites.
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*108Remember this little factoid the next time you come across a bird’s nest and are tempted to bring it home to show your kids. And, on a related topic, any newly dead animal is likely to be crawling with ectoparasites—and many of them will gladly jump off their deceased hosts and on to you (at least temporarily), should the opportunity arise. You should also think about this one the next time your cat brings home a recent kill.
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*109According to pest-control experts, developing hobbies like dusting and vacuuming are solid preventive measures, while storing stuff under your bed is bad juju. They also recommend sealing all cracks and crevices in your home with silicon or caulking compound. (Potential harborage sites for bed bugs include cracks in hardwood flooring, bed frames, moldings, as well as the spaces between walls or floors and semipermanent structures like bookshelves.) You should also paste down or replace peeling wallpaper or contact paper, fill in nail holes, and seal all holes in floors and walls where bed bugs might enter from outside. And before you sit down, check your toilet paper tubes and curtain rods.
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*110Pest-control experts do suggest that you cover your mattress with an airtight, hypoallergenic cover, which not only prevents bed bugs from getting out (if you did have them) but also prevents new ones from getting in.
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†111 According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the easiest way to determine whether a mattress is new or refurbished is to look for an attached label. New mattresses should have a white label stating that it contains “all new materials.” Depending on the state, used mattresses may have a tag warning consumers that the mattress contains used materials. In New York, for example, sellers of used bedding must attach “a 15 square inch yellow label…which contains the phrase ‘Used Material’ in prominent print.” With this in mind, purchasing a mattress with no tag should be avoided and the FTC recommends that you not let the heavy plastic wrapping dissuade