iio The Book of Bugs. 



yes, it pays to emulate the example of the cockroach in 

 caring for one's offspring. 



Then too, the house-fly, being a comparatively recent 

 comer, has not the wealth of accumulated wisdom behind 

 it that the cockroach has, and so is not nearly so good an 

 insurance risk. In all the millions of years since the 

 coal measures were thoughtfully put in our cellar, the 

 earth, the cockroach has learned how to live. It is 

 smooth and thin, hard to catch and easy to hide. The 

 cockroach never saunters. It always runs, and having 

 three pairs of legs it gets over the ground with consider- 

 able agility. Anatomically regarded, its legs are the 

 standard pattern for all the six-legged tribe. The first 

 and third leg on one side and the middle leg on the oppo- 

 site side are always down together, one to pull, one to 

 push and the other to act as a pivot and support. Its 

 eyes may not amount to much to warn it of the approach 

 of foes, for they are bent under, like its mouth-parts, for 

 convenience in eating, but the long, hundred-jointed fila- 

 ments of its antennae are extremely sensitive to jolts and 

 jars. These filaments are pitted all over with little de- 

 pressions, and the entomologists guess that they are not 

 only feelers, but compound noses. The old Romans 

 called the cockroach htcifiiga, fleeing the light, but the 

 old Romans did not observe very closely, or they would 

 have seen that it is not the light the insect flees from, 

 but the one that carries it. Flash light on them all you 

 like. They do not object. But take one step, whose 

 tremor is conveyed by walls and floors and sets their 

 antennae to quivering, and the rustling and scuffling to 

 get under cover show how anxious they are to avoid 

 publicity. 



I am going to be scientific now, but only for a brief 

 paragraph, That the cockroach has stuck so closely to 



