173 



Monu5 ant) jfcatbere^ Jfowls. 



By the Rev. C. D. Farrar. 



"^ •rjl 's far as I remember, Mr. Biiniaiid, who in 

 j*H Happy Thojcghts a7id My Health, gives much 

 J"~^ information, curious and interesting, on ear- 

 wigs and wasps, omitted that interesting 

 creature — " the black clock." Tlie cockroach is a siiie 

 qua Jiou in an avicultural establishment. Therefore, 

 when taking a new house, always keep an ej^e lifting 

 for humble necessary creatures. You may start doing 

 so at once, wliich will postpone the catastrophe, not 

 avert it, for the song will one day come true : 



" Some day, some day I shall meet 3'ou, 

 Love, I know not when nor how ! " 



Perhaps, therefore, this being so, and watchfulness 

 being a strain when done deliberately, and worrying 

 ])eing one of the worst things in the world, you may 

 just as well let things slide down the time stream, till 

 fate sends you a host of the wretches. 



It is after dark that they come abroad. By day 

 they lie low like Brer Rabbit when he had reason to 

 suppose Brer Fox was after him. As darkness deepens 

 the}^ come forth by battalions and spread in open 

 formation over the kitchen floor. Here and there in 

 the gloom 3'ou see glistening black bodies, which 

 an unsuspecting one might mistake for pieces of coal 

 •dropped by the domestic Abigail, but look closer and 

 5'ou will see that it is an " acies instituta" of cock- 

 roaches. To parody the lines of a well-worn obituary 

 notice often appearing in the Yorkshire Post : 



"We see them here, we see them there. 

 We see those beetles everywhere." 



I always like to do so, just as a Yorkshire Squire likes 

 to see a nice head of game on his land when Septem- 

 ber comes. 



