PKRIPLANETA AMERICANA. 103 



there was well known to the sparrows, for while we 

 were watching a sparrow carried away a specimen 

 from before us. Possibly the same thins: had occurred 



/ o 



before, as several wings and other remains were 

 noticed near, the feast apparently having taken place 

 on the spot when the house was free of visitors. In 

 1897 Bell-Marley found them at the Junior U.S. Club 

 in London, in the cellars. He could hear the rustling 

 of their wings as they hurried away, and he saw 

 manv in the act of flying. F. AY. Edwards had 



e/ t/ 



some specimens sent to him from a coalmine in 

 Monmouthshire, where they were known to have 

 been present for some years. Bignell speaks of 

 P. (imericana as driving out B. orientdlis at Plymouth: 



O J 



while, on the other hand, Carter told Burr that it was 

 once common at Bradford, but that it had disappeared 

 and been replaced by B. tjermanica and B. orientalis. 

 From its being so great a pest on board many ships, it 

 is often spoken of as the "ship-cockroach." As 

 regards food it seems to be practically omnivorous. 



DISTRIBUTION.- -According to Brunner, " Cette 

 Blattaire se rencontre dans le monde entier " : it is 

 in fact a cosmopolitan species. In England it is 

 numerous at the Zoological Gardens, in docks, ware- 

 houses, etc. In Europe it is abundant under similar 



conditions. Finot savs that in France it is found 



i/ 



in ports, vessels, shops of colonial produce, sugar- 

 refineries, and hothouses : it is naturalised only in 

 certain ports of the Mediterranean coast. Though 

 TTalsh doubts if P. americana is really indigenous to 

 America but suspects its importation from Asia, it 

 does appear to hail from South America and has 

 followed the trade-routes over nearly all the world. 

 In Honolulu it often flies durins: the day.* In Cairo 



t/ 



it was found indoors (F. "W. Sowerby). 



* ' It is probably the species of which Captain John Smith,, of Virginia 

 fame, wrote in 1624 ' a certaine India Bug, called by the Spaniards a 

 Cacarootch, the which creeping into Chests they eat and defile with their 

 ill-scented dung' ( Shelf ord, 'A Naturalist in Borneo,' p. 115 (1916). 



