74 



FAMILY II. BLATTID.E. THE COCKROACHES. 



have to deal. It is the most fecund of all roaches and the seasons 

 of mating and hatching of the young are perhaps, more irregular 

 than in any other species. Adult forms are evidently to be found 

 at all seasons of the year, as I have taken them in December, April 

 and October. It is not so much a lover of filthy surroundings as 

 is the Oriental roach, and hence frequents more often than that 



Fig. 35. Blattclla gcrmanica (L) ; a, first stage; b, second stage; 

 c, third stage; d, fourth stage; c, adult; /, adult female with egg 

 case; y, egg case, enlarged; h, adult, with wings spread. All 

 natural size except g. (After Howard & Marlatt.) 



species the dwellings of the better class of people. It delights in 

 warm, moist places, and is especially abundant and destructive in 

 buildings which are heated by steam. As an evidence of its abund- 

 ance under favorable conditions it may be stated that in 1890 a 

 single person captured for me over 30 adult specimens and fully 

 half that number of young, in less than ten minutes, in the kitchen 

 of the leading hotel of the city of Terre Haute. Where it once 

 obtains a foothold and the surroundings of temperature and food 

 supply are favorable, it is almost impossible to eradicate, as its 

 small flattened form enables it to hide and breed in cracks and 

 crevices which none of the other roaches can enter. 



Like many other omnivorous animals, Croton bugs find in 

 wheaten flour a food substance which is rich in nutrition and 

 easily digested, and so they prefer wheat breads and starchy mate- 

 rials to all other foods. On account of this liking they often do 

 much harm to cloth bound books lay gnawing their covers in search 

 of the paste beneath. 



They also seem to have a peculiar liking for paints of various 

 kinds, and Glover (1ST5, 132), states that in his office "They 

 made a raid on a box of water colors where they devoured the 

 cakes of paint, vermilion, cobalt and umber alike; and the only 

 vestiges left Avere the excrements in the form of small pellets of 

 various colors in the bottom of the box." 



