286 THE INSECT WORLD. 



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

 moths : 



" Cui stragula vestis, 

 Blattarum ac tinearum epulas, 

 Putrescit in area." 



These disagreeable insects devour our eatables, abounding in 

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

 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 Germanica}. 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 devours 

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

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

 another with a view to eating him afterwards. 



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

 developed, the antennas 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 mostly 

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

 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. Two 

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

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

 themselves in dwellings of the northern countries. They are a 

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

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

 after the Seven Years' War (1756-1762). Till this period it was 

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

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

 prefers white bread to flour and meat The Blatta Laponica devours 

 the smoked fish prepared for the winter. 



The German naturalist, Hummel, made some interesting obser- 



