Bug

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

a large sub-order of insects. The term is too often applied to beetles as well. The wing covers of a beetle are horny throughout, and meet in a straight line on the back like edges of a clam shell. The front wings of a bug are hard and horny only part way. The tips are thin or gauzy and overlap when folded. The wings of flies are gauzy throughout. Potato bugs, June bugs, rose bugs, and lady bugs are all beetles. The chinch bug, the squash bug, and the cotton-stainer are true bugs. The bedbug is rightly named. Like other insects, bugs breathe by tubes situated in the sides of the abdomen. The water boatmen that dive like silver bubbles carry air surrounding their bodies. The back-swimmers that float around on their backs carry down a supply of air under their wings. The longlegged, slender, water-striders that dart around each other on the surface of a quiet pool are also bugs. Toad-shaped bugs, shore bugs, assassin bugs, ambush bugs, flat bugs, leaf bugs, red bugs, stilt bugs, stink bugs, lace bugs, and negro bugs are all too numerous for description, and must be studied with a textbook like Comstock's Manual. The electric light bug is the largest bug known in America. See Bedbug ; Chinch Bug ; Beetle 2026 Editor's Note: This page uses language about race that was commonplace when the book was published and is offensive by today's standards. The text has been left exactly as it was printed, rather than cut or softened, so that the historical record — including how ordinary such language once was — is preserved. (Ed: BR 2026-07-22) 2026 Editor's Note: The word acquired its most-used modern sense in this entry's own century: a "bug" is now a defect in software. The most famous is literal — in 1947 operators of the Harvard Mark II found a moth caught in a relay, taped it into the logbook, and noted that they had " debugged " the machine. The page survives in the Smithsonian. (Ed: BR 2026-06-14)