io8 The Book of Bugs. 



to him, money money to be got and kept. If you want 

 folks to think yon are somebody, always let the other fel- 

 low pay the carfare. They say Russell Sage does that. 

 It is to his credit. Shows he has good sense and is not 

 afraid to act up to his convictions. Why should you pay 

 another's carfare any more than his rent? Don't give 

 your old clothes to the Oneida Indian mission. It only 

 degrades the Indians and makes them ridiculous in their 

 own eyes and other people's. Wear 'em out and then 

 make braided rugs of them, since you cannot eat them up 

 as the cockroach does. 



Mamma Cockroach impresses the lesson upon the little 

 white buttons that have just emerged from the shell and 

 are looking about them at the bright and beautiful new 

 world. : Waste not, want not," she says with her 

 mouth full of valise. Thev remember this, and as fast as 



V 



they get outside their old clothes they get outside them. 

 I do not know that I make this quite clear. Let me try 

 again. They were inside their old clothes a moment 

 ago. They burst them and get outside them. Then 

 they put the old clothes inside them. It's all right now, 

 isn't it? 



It used to be thought that it took the young from four 

 to five years to grow up, but that was too extravagant a 

 guess. Observation shows that the Croton bug matures 

 in from four and a half to six months, and specimens of 

 Pcriplancta amcricana, the standard American cock- 

 roach, hatched on July TT, began to go out in society be- 

 tween March IT and June 12 of the following year. In 

 the colder climates they retire from active business to 

 winter quarters, where they hibernate. 



Almost no other insects ever so much as see their 

 mothers. Some little provision is generally made by lay- 

 ing the eggs in a favorable location or stocking a cell 



