98 BRITISH ORTHOFTERA. 



Chitty found it in woods near Barnet (Herts). On 

 29 March 1907 W. Daws took a female in a garden 

 (presumably at Mansfield, Notts) at a distance from 

 any house in a heap of garden refuse : it was very 

 stupefied and did not attempt to escape. Morley 

 found two specimens on 9 January 1896, hibernating 

 beneath the bark of a large elm- tree at Ewell, near 

 Epsom, but he had never heard of any other " wild ' 

 catch : there was a cottage about a hundred yards 

 away, but no other houses were in the vicinity. On 81 

 January 1911 Burr found this cockroach, along with 

 Blattella germanica, within a rubbish -heap in a brick- 

 yard near Cheriton in Kent (see p. 90). In the Hope 

 Collection at Oxford there is a female nymph, labelled 

 " under bark of tree 10 feet up, K.Gr." [perhaps " Kew 

 Gardens "] (Burr). 



DISTRIBUTION.- -In B. orientalis we have a cosmo- 

 politan species, which is now found practically every- 

 where. It had in fact become such a wanderer that 

 its original home was uncertain. Linnaeus says : 

 " Habitat in America, hospitatur in Oriente." (It is a 

 native of America, but has taken up its abode in the 

 East.) Further he says : " Hodie in Russise adja- 

 centibus regionibus frequens ; incepit nuperis tem- 

 poribus Holmise, 1 739, uti dudum in Finlandia.' : 

 (Common at the present day in parts near Russia, it 

 has lately, 1739, reached Stockholm, and but just 

 appeared in Finland.) He is mistaken with regard to 

 America, for B. orientalis is a native of the Old World, 

 and, so far as Britain is concerned, does not belie its 

 scientific name. Perhaps its original habitat has at 

 last been discovered, for Shelf or d says (referring to 

 4 Ann. Mus. Zool. St. Petersbourg ' xii (1907) p. 401) : 

 " Curiously enough it has not been met with in a 

 truly wild state until quite recently ; the first speci- 

 mens that were found were caught in houses, and 

 though it has always been assumed that it was 

 imported into Europe from the East, I am not aware 

 that it has ever been found in Asia except as an 



