114 
COCKROACH. 
articles as they have passed over. The largest of 
the genus is the Blatta gigantea of Linnieus, 
which is a native of many of the warmer parts 
of Asia, Africa, and South-America. It is this 
species in particular which seems to be intended 
in the following description of the ravages of this 
genus by an excellent observer who had contem- 
plated the animals in their native climes. 
The Cockroaches* are a race of pestiferous 
beings, equally noisome and mischievous to na- 
tives or strangers, but particularly to collectors. 
These nasty and voracious insects fly out in the 
evenings and commit monstrous depredations: 
they plunder and erode all kinds of victuals, drest 
and undrest, and damage all sorts of cloathing, 
especially those which are touched with powder, 
pomatum, and similar substances ; every thing 
made of leather, books, paper, and various other 
articles, which if they do not destroy, at least 
they soil, as they frequently deposit a drop of 
their excrement where they settle, and some way 
or other by that means damage what they cannot 
devour. They fly into the flame of candles, and 
sometimes into the dishes; are very fond of ink 
and of oil, into which they are apt to fall and 
perish. In this case they soon turn most oflen- 
sively putrid, so that a man might as well sit over 
the cadaverous body of a large animal as write 
with the ink in which they have died, dliey often 
fly into persons’ faces or bosoms, and their legs 
* See the preface to the third volume of Drury’s Exotic 
Insects. 
