The Aristocrat of the Kitchen. 109 



with food for them, but even among the almost human 

 bees the little ones stay in solitary confinement, each in its 

 cell, tended by elder sisters, but never catching a glimpse 

 of the lady of the house. But Mamma Cockroach broods 

 and protects her little ones. There are few more touch- 

 ingly domestic scenes than that of a happy cockroach 

 home with all the little ones playing about, climbing over 

 Papa, sitting on Mamma's back, or cuddling under 

 Uncle George or Aunt Eliza. (The names, of course, are 

 fictitious, but the fact can be easily verified.) 



That this tender care is not without results is demon- 

 strable by the size of the brood, of which there is only 

 one in the year. If the female cockroach were as giddy 



Fig. 26. Tha American roach; a, from above; />, from beneath. 



and thoughtless as the house-flv she would have to be as 



O 



prolific. Two million descendants are a good many for 

 one summer, and yet there doesn't seem to be much dif- 

 ference year by year in the number of house-flies. Six- 

 teen is with us considered a fairly good-sized number of 

 children, and one that justifies putting all the boards in 

 the extension dinner-table, but compared with two mil- 

 lion it may be said to be a very small family indeed. Ah, 



