2a) 
geographical variation, caused me to reduce them to varieties or races. 
Where a well known species ranges over a large area, the different environ- 
ments, due to altitude, variation in mean annual temperature, atmos- 
pherie conditions, difference in topography, drainage and soils, varied food 
plants and many other causes, are sure to bring about certain changes in its 
external structure. If only the extremes of these variants be at hand, 
they are often so different in appearance as to cause them to be considered 
races or even different species. However, where a large series from all 
parts of the range are present, intermediates are almost sure to be found 
and there is little use and often much resulting confusion in giving or recog- 
nizing a specific name for each slightly variable form. 
The Orthoptera of the territory covered I have placed in eight families 
of which I will make brief mention, comparing the members of each as 
represented in the faunas of Indiana and Florida. 
FAMILY I.—ForFicuLIDAE.—The Earwigs. Narrow, flat Orthopterons, with 
either short outer wings or none at all, their abdomen ending in a pair of 
forceps-like appendages. They are mostly subtropical in distribution and 
occur beneath bark or in crevices in houses and ships. Twelve species are 
known from eastern North America, nine occurring in Florida, three in 
Indiana, one common to both states and one not found in either. The name 
earwig was given them by the peasants of Europe, who believe that they 
often enter the ears of humans and injure the hearing, such belief being 
of course nonsensical. They often do much damage by eating ripe fruit, 
tender shoots and corollas of flowers, ete. 
FAMILY 11.—BLATTIDAE.—The Cockroaches. Examples of these are familiar 
to all. Their distribution is mainly tropical and of many species cosmopol- 
itan. In the houses of the poorer classes of the tropical countries they form 
the most annoying and disgusting of insect pests. They are omnivorous in 
choice of food, but live chiefly upon animal and vegetable refuse. In some 
parts of Brazil they are said to eat the eyelashes of the children, biting them 
off irregularly, often quite close to the lid, and as the children have very 
long black eye-lashes, their appearance thus defaced is very grotesque. 
Where abundant in a house, cockroaches leave a fetid, nauseous odor, well 
known as the “roachy odor’ which is persistent and defiles both food and 
dishes. One writer has thus quaintly written of them and other house- 
dwelling insects in the screenless hotels of India : 
“On every dish the booming beetle falls, 
The cockroach plays, or caterpillar crawls; 
A thousand shapes of variegated hues 
Parade the table or inspect the stews. 
When hideous insects every plate defile 
The laugh how empty and how forced the smile.” 
While hundreds of species of cockroaches occur in the tropics, only 43, 
and two varieties are residents of the United States. Of these 30 species 
and both varieties are known east of the Mississippi, 24 species and one va- 
