H 6 THOSE OTHER ANIMALS. 



organised war is waged against the cockroach. Feeble 

 efforts are made now and then to get rid of it by scattering 

 beetle paste, and other supposed destroyers, about the 

 kitchen, or by setting traps for it to walk into ; but these 

 measures, although effective to a certain point, make but 

 small inroads upon its numbers, and it is only when it 

 ascends the stairs and begins to pervade the house that 

 serious attention is paid to it. There are men in London 

 who make a livelihood by clearing houses, restaurants, 

 and other dwellings, of cockroaches. Their methods are a 

 secret, but they are certainly efficacious, and did the opera- 

 tors advertise their addresses they would be very largely 

 patronised. Some have supposed that they charm the in- 

 sects from their hiding-places by the sounds of sweet music ; 

 others that they possess a perfume which the cockroach 

 cannot withstand, and that by it he is attracted to his death ; 

 while a few hold the belief that the insects are induced to 

 leave their abodes by the use of cabalistic words. 



The cockroach, like most of the order of orthoptera to 

 which it belongs, retains the same form from the date it 

 issues from the egg to its death. Familiar instances of 

 this peculiarity are the earwig, locust, and grasshopper. 

 The only difference between the first and second stage is 

 that they do not become winged until arriving at maturity, 

 the wings being then folded up under the leathery reticu- 

 lated wing-case that distinguishes the order. It is rarely, 

 indeed, that the cockroach uses the means of locomotion 

 with which nature has provided it. It is possible that if 

 it took to out-door exercise it would do so ; but, passing 

 its life as it does indoors, it has no occasion whatever for the 

 use of its wings, and many people are even unaware that it 



