163 



width of body, 4 mm. Female— Length of body, 10 mm. ; of tegmina, 

 11 mm. ; of antenna?, 13 mm. 



The ootheca of the Croton bug is very light brown, a little over twice 

 as long as broad, 7.5x3.5 mm., with the sides somewhat flattened and the 

 edges parallel. Within it the eggs, thirty-six in number, are arranged in 

 the usual two rows. It is carried about by the mother roach for several 

 days with from half to three-fourths of its length protruding from the 

 abdomen, and when dropped in a favorable place the young, evidently 

 very soon, emerge from it ; for in a bottle in which a female with pro- 

 tuding ootheca waw placed at eleven o'clock P. M. the young were found 

 to have emerged on the following morning at eight. They were then 

 wholly white, except the lateral edges of the abdomen, where a blackish 

 tinge was evident. By five o'clock in the afternoon of the same day, hav- 

 ing meanwhile eaten their fill of moistened wheaten bread, they had • 

 become too large for their skins, and had moulted for the first time. 

 They then measured 3 mm. in length, and the head,pronotum, abdomen, 

 and apical half of antenna? were black, while the other two thoracic rings 

 and the basal half of antenna? were a grayish white. The half-grown 

 young are very dark brown, with the first four or five segments bordered 

 with yellow, and with traces of a lighter median stripe. 



The " Croton bug," so called because it made its appearance in Ifew York 

 City in numbers about the time the Croton Aqueduct was completed, is 

 a native of Central Europe, but like the Oriental roach, has become cos- 

 mopolitan. 



It seldom if ever occurs in numbers in the country, but is one of the 

 worst insect pests with which the inhabitants of the larger cities of the 

 United States have to deal. It is the most fecund of all the roaches, and 

 the seasons of mating and hatching of the young are, perhaps, more ir- 

 regular than in any other species. Adult forms are evidently to be 

 found at all seasons of the year, as I have taken them in December, April 

 and October. It is not so much a lover of filthy surroundings as is the 

 Oriental roach, and hence frequents more often than that species the 

 dwellings of the better class of people. It delights in warm, moist places, 

 and is especially abundant and destructive in buildings which are heated 

 by Fteam. 



As an evidence of its abundance under favorable conditions, Iwill men- 

 tion that a single person captured for me over thirty adult specimens and 

 fully .half that number of young, in less than ten minutes in the kitchen 



