1 1 2 The Book of Bugs. 



bristled with spines. He is not hail-fellow well-met with 

 all sorts of creatures. About the only animal that likes 

 him is the tree-toad, although among some peoples salted 

 cockroaches are a great delicacy. I cannot say if they 

 are really very good. I never tried. I should think not, 

 though, for cockroach tea and cockroach pills are used 

 in Russia as remedies for dropsy. People are not accus- 

 tomed to make medicines out of goodies. 



Cockroaches have the habits of a confirmed tobacco- 

 chevver and expectorate freely in safe run-ways, probably 

 to mark the places for identification. They have glands 

 that secrete what they think is perfume, and it is so last- 

 ing that it ruins articles of food, especially coffee, to be 

 left on a shelf where roaches run. Nothing but boiling 

 water and soapsuds can remove the taint. 



Because of this, and also because it is a scavenger, the 

 roach is unpopular. The variety called the Croton bug, 

 because of its early recognition of the value of a system 

 of waterworks, by following the pipes of which it could 

 reach the homes of all and attain warmth and moisture 

 almost equaling the long-lost days of the Carboniferous 

 era, the vanished Eden of the cockroach, is really a Ger- 

 man importation. Although it does not bear the label 



' Made in Germany," it is named Ectobia germanica, and 

 is much smarter than the others of its race. Yet in 

 North German kitchens it is called a " Suabian," in 

 South Germany a ' Prussian," in East Germany it is a 



' Russian," and in West Germany a ' Frenchman." 

 Sometimes it is also a " Spaniard ' or a " Dane," but 

 never, never does a countryman of 4t Wild Willi " admit 

 that Ectobia germanica is a German, East, West, North, 

 South, High, Low, or Middle. They wash their hands 

 of the whole tribe, and would like to wash their cup- 

 boards of them, too. 



