398 TEXT-BOOK OF ZOOLOGY 



(Bacillus, Bacteria, etc.), bear a most striking resemblance to dry twigs : 

 the body and legs are very long and thin, the wings are reduced to short 

 rudiments, and the colour, which is made up of gray, brown, and black 

 tints, is exactly like that of dry twigs. Added to this, the legs are 

 placed in most asymmetrical positions, and in places have irregular lobe- 

 like expansions, giving the whole insect the appearance of a dry twig 

 with pieces of the bark stripped loose. The spectres are natives of 

 Southern latitudes. 



Group 3 : Cursorial Orthoptera (Cursoria). 

 Family 6 : Cockroaches (Blattidae). 



The blackish-brown, well-known, and much - detested insect, the 

 Cockroach (Periplaneta orientalis), is met with in the same situations as 

 the cricket. It has a variety of names, varying with different localities ; 

 on the Continent it is usual to call it by the name of the least popular 

 of neighbouring nations, " Kussian," " Frenchman," " Prussian," 

 " Suabian," etc. During the daytime it hides in holes and crevices, but 

 in the night it emerges from its hiding-places, and gnaws and scrapes at 

 anything that is eatable. The males, with their long wings, are not at 

 all unlike a beetle (hence popularly called " blackbeetles "). The females 

 have only rudiments of wings, and are therefore incapable of flight. 



The cockroach seems to have immigrated from the East, and to be 

 by degrees supplanting the smaller dirty-yellow German Cockroach 

 (Blatta germanica). (Compare with rat.) Both species do not deposit 

 their eggs singly, but packed together in cases ; and their hind-legs are 

 not adapted for jumping, but are ordinary walking legs, as is also the 

 case in 



Family 7: The Earwigs (Forficulidae). 



The Common Earwig (Forficula auricularia) is met with in gardens 

 wherever it can find a suitable hiding-place. It is a perfectly harmless 

 insect which lives on all kinds of vegetable substances, being specially 

 fond of sweet fruits, but which never, as calumnious report has it, creeps 

 into people's ears, and there does all kinds of mischief (name). The 

 pincer-like appendages of the abdomen may be used occasionally for the 

 purpose of inspiring fear in its enemy, after the manner of some savage 

 warrior in terrible war-paint ; but as a rule these organs subserve a quite 

 different purpose. The wing-cases are very short, and cover large mem- 

 branous hind-wings, which are folded both longitudinally and trans- 



