Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. an upholsterer [they dislodge the insects as they repair the furniture; unless Grose’s ms is a wholly separate sense, then presumably = SE undertaker, one who takes on a task].

1725		View of London & Westminster (2nd part) 13: [A] Club of Bug-hunters and Pillow-patchers take Possession of his House [and] hoist their Standard, a nasty Carpet over the Door.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Bug-hunter an Undertaker.
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn).
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

2. an entomologist.

1887		W.T. Call Josh Hayseed in N.Y. 7: I’ve ben hankerin’ to see where them bug hunters and rock smashers git their tomfool idees from.
1898		Kipling ‘In Ambush’ in Complete Stalky & Co. (1987) 30: I conciliated Hartopp. ’Told him that you’d read papers to the Bug-hunters if he’d let you join, Beetle. ’Told him you liked butterflies, Turkey.
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 26 June 2nd sect. 12/5: What has become of the ‘beneficial parasites’ that [...] Compère the itinerant bug-hunter, gathered [...] at such vast expense to the State, and which were going to knock out the fruit-fly in one round?
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.