INSECT PESTS OF THE HOUSE. 



337 



pet is found infested, a wet cloth, can be spread down along the 

 edges, and a hot iron passed over it, the steam thus generated 

 not only killing the beetles and larva?, but destroying any eggs 

 that may have been laid. Clothing is sometimes attacked as 

 well as objects of natural history — such as stuffed birds and 

 mammals. 



It was believed that the beetle must feed on some plant, for in 

 a number of cases it was captured out of doors, and it was finally 

 discovered feeding on the pollen of the flowers of spiraeas, the 

 beetle living on the plant for a while and then returning to the 

 house to lay its eggs. When this was proved, it was suggested 

 that spiraeas should be planted around houses infested by the 

 beetle ; by doing this the plants could be often examined and the 

 beetles destroyed. 



Cockroaches (Blattidce). — Among the Orthoptera, to which 

 order this family belongs, we find a different mode of transforma- 

 tion. Were it not for its small size and the absence of wings, the 

 young would closely resem- 

 ble the parent, and, after 

 molting or changing its 

 skin several times, it reach- 

 es maturity without having 

 passed through a stage in 

 which it keeps perfectly 

 quiet, as in the case of the 

 moth and beetle. 



The eggs of the cockroach 

 are carried about in a lit- 

 tle case by the female, and 

 when these eggs are ready 

 to hatch, this case is dropped ; and it is said by some writers that 

 the little ones are helped out by the mother. Just after the young 

 come from the egg, and after each molt, they are white, but the 

 usual color is brown or black. They molt five or six times before 

 reaching maturity. 



Cockroaches are very troublesome, eating anything that comes 

 in their way ; are unpleasant to look upon, and are specially dis- 

 gusting to us on account of their disagreeable odor. 



The large cockroach (Periplaneta orienialis), or "black beetle," 

 as it is sometimes called, might in some cases be not unwelcome, 

 as it acts as a scavenger, keeping the corners of the rooms it fre- 

 quents clean, and furthermore it feeds on that most disgusting of 

 pests, the bed-bug. Though this is said in its favor, we think 

 there is no doubt that the remedy might be thought as bad as the 

 disease, and it would be considered more agreeable to find some 

 other way of exterminating the bed-bug ; and most people would 



25* 



Fig. 3. — Cockroach, a, male ; b, female. 



