Under normal conditions the food of the common bedbug is obtained from human beings only, and no other unforced feeding habit has been reported. It is easily possible, however, to force the bedbug to feed on mice, rats, birds, etc., and probably it may do so occasionally in nature in the absence of its normal host. The abundance of this insect in houses which have long been untenanted may occasionally be accounted for by such other sources of food, but probably normally such infestation can be explained by the natural longevity of the insect and its ability to survive for practically a year, and perhaps more, without food.

There are many records indicating the ability of the bedbug to survive for long periods without food, and specimens have been kept for a year in a sealed vial with absolutely no means of sustenance whatever. In the course of the department's study of this insect in 1896, young bedbugs, obtained from eggs, were kept in small sealed vials for several months, remaining active in spite of the fact that they had never taken any nourishment whatever. A considerable series of experiments was later conducted by Girault[7] bearing on the longevity of the insect under different conditions. A large number of adults of both sexes were kept in confinement, but with normal feeding and mating, and these survived for periods ranging from 54 to 316 days. Similarly, the life of 71 newly hatched larvÆ, without food, ranged from 17 to 42 days, averaging about 28 days. Partly grown captured insects lived without further feeding from 17 to 60 days. Longevity is naturally affected more or less by temperatures. In other words, temperatures sufficient to check the activity of the insect and produce hibernation or semihibernation are apt to increase longevity.

The fact that the bedbug is able to survive for such long periods without human blood has led to the theory that it could subsist in some fashion on the moisture from wood or from accumulations of dust in crevices in flooring, etc. There seems to be no basis of observed fact for this idea.

Another very prevalent belief among the old settlers in the West, that this insect normally lives on dead or diseased cottonwood logs, and is almost certain to abound in log houses of this wood, seems to be equally devoid of basis. As illustrating this belief, the department has on file a very definite report from an Army officer that the bedbug often occurs in numbers under the bark of dead cottonwood trees,[8] especially along the Big Horn and Little Horn Rivers in Montana. The basis of this report and the origin of this very general misconception is probably, as pointed out by the late Prof. Riley, due to a confusion of the bedbug with the immature stages of an entirely distinct insect,[9] which somewhat resembles the bedbug and often occurs under cottonwood bark.