286 THE INSECT WORLD. 



and animal. Horace reproaches them with devouring stuffs, like the 



moths : — 



** Cui stragula vestis, 

 Blattarum ac tinearum epulae, 

 Putrescit in area." 



These disagreeable insects devour our eatables, abounding in 

 kitchens, in bakers' shops, on board merchant vessels, &c. Theii 

 flattened bodies allow them easily to introduce themselves into the 

 cracks of cases or barrels ; so that, to be safe against their attacks, it 

 is necessary, on long voyages, to shut up the goods in zinc-lined 

 boxes, or cases made of sheet-iron well soldered together. 



Chamisso relates that the sailors having opened some barrels 

 which should have contained rice and wheat, found them filled with 

 German Cockroaches {Blatta Gennanica). This transubstantiation 

 was not very agreeable to the crew ! Other naturalists have seen this 

 insect invading by millions bottles which had contained oil. The 

 Cockroach is very fond also of the blacking on boots, and devoun 

 leather and all. One pupa sometimes eats the skin cast off by 

 another pupa, but a Cockroach has never been known to attach 

 another with a view to eating him afterwards. 



These Orthoptera have a flat broad body, the thorax very much 

 developed, the antenna very long, and the legs thin but strong, which 

 enable them to run with remarkable quickness. They diffuse around 

 them a sickening odour, which often hangs about objects they have 

 touched. Aristophanes, the Greek comic poet, mentions this 

 peculiarity in his comedy of "The Peace." They come out mostl) 

 at night, and hide themselves during the day. They are the mosi 

 cosmopolitan of all insects. Carried over in ships, they perpetuate 

 everywhere, just like weeds ! Persian powder, composed of pul 

 verised pyrethra, is an excellent means to employ for their destruction 



Most of the species of cockroaches are black or brownish. Twc 

 among them, the Blatta Germanica and the Blatta Laponica, which 

 are to be met with in the woods round about Paris, have domesticatec 

 themselves in dwellings of the northern countries. They are i 

 quarter of an inch in length. The Russians pretend that the fonne: 

 was imported from Prussia by their army, on its return from Germany 

 after the Seven Years' War (17 56-1 762). Till this period it wai 

 unknown at St. Petersburg, where now-a-days it is met with in grea 

 numbers. It lives in houses, and eats pretty nearly everything, bui 

 prefers white bread to flour and meat. The Blatta Laponica devour; 

 the smoked fish prepared for the winter. 



The German naturalist, Hummel, made some interesting obser 



I 



