100 FAMILY II. BLATTID.E. THE COCKROACHES. 



Putnam and Marion counties, Ind. ; April 29 Dec. 15. Gaines- 

 ville, Dunedin and Sanford, Fla., March 6 May 30 (W. 8. B.). 

 This is by far the largest cockroach found in Indiana and doubt- 

 less occurs in all the larger towns of the State. It was formerly 

 found in numbers in some of the leading hotels and in the State 

 House at Indianapolis, but usually confines itself to the basement 

 and first floor, and appears to be much more cleanly in its choice 

 of an abiding place than does the closely allied Oriental roach. 

 It is, as its specific name indicates, a native of tropical and sub- 

 tropical America; but, like B. orient alis, it has spread to the four 

 corners of the earth. In Florida it has been taken by R. & H. and 

 others at numerous localities throughout the State, being abund- 

 ant in a houseboat at Pine Channel, and in a fruit store at Key 

 West. Elsewhere it occurs in this country from New York west 

 to Minnesota and south to California and New Mexico, but in 

 the more northern states is probably to be considered as adven- 

 tive rather than firmly established. South of the United States, 

 it is found generally over the Continent and adjacent islands 

 (Hclwrd, 1917a, 181). 



Catesby, as far back as 1748, wrote of this species in Carolina 20 

 as follows: "The cockroaches here are very troublesome and de- 

 structive vermin, and are so numerous and voracious that it is im- 

 possible to keep victuals of any kind from being devoured by 

 them without close covering. They are flat, and so thin that few 

 chests or boxes can exclude them. They eat not only leather, 

 parchment and woolen, but linen and paper. They disappear in 

 winter and appear most numerous in the hottest days in summer. 

 It is at night they commit their depredations, and bite people in 

 their beds, especially children's fingers that are greasy. They 

 lay innumerable eggs, creeping into the holes of old walls and 

 rubbish, where they lie torpid all the winter. Some have wings 

 and others are without perhaps of different sexes." 



Catesby's wingless examples were in all probability the young, 

 as, like most other insects, the wings are not acquired until the 

 final moult. Marlatt (1902, 8) says that the "domesticity of the 

 American roach resulted from ages of association with the aborig- 

 ines. Tt has now become thoroughly cosmopolitan, and is unques- 

 tionably the most injurious and annoying of the species occurring 

 on vessels. It is sometimes numerous also in greenhouses, caus- 

 ing considerable injury to tender plants. It is a notorious house 

 pest, and occasionally vies with the German roach in its injuries 



-"Natural History, Carolina, 1748, Vol. II, p. 10. 



