298 OUR HOUSEHOLD INSECTS 



in a house. The ordinary insect-powders are of very 

 little avail when they retreat to their narrow hiding- 

 places, between floor-boards, behind wainscoting or 

 loose wall-papers, or in the chinks of the joints of 

 bedsteads, and something which will be more penetrat- 

 ing needs to be employed. Hence one or the other of 

 two methods has chiefly to be relied upon either the 

 application of a mobile and penetrating liquid, or the 

 production of a noxious vapour. Liquids of the benzine 

 and petroleum type are the best to use under the former 

 head. Br. Packard recommends an exceedingly simple 

 preparation, consisting of "thirty parts of unpurified 

 cheap petroleum, mixed with 1000 parts of water." 

 Frank Buckland recommended benzine, which he squirted 

 into their hiding-places by means of a small glass 

 syringe, with the effect that they turned out at once, 

 and could be despatched by further applications of the 

 same fluid. The same naturalist describes, with his 

 customary quaintness, a raid he made on kitchen cock- 

 roaches with similar artillery : "I took with me an 

 assistant, three glass squirts, and a wide-mouthed bottle 

 of benzol. As the blackbeetles scuttled away to their 

 holes, I kept firing at them, killing some dead, and 

 wounding others, for next morning we found plenty 

 of ' dead birds ' about the kitchen. With an active 

 loader to manage the second syringe, and plenty of 

 black game, blackbeetle-shooting at night in the kitchen 

 will give as much sport as rabbit-shooting in a warren 

 by day." Methylated spirit, and diluted carbolic acid, 

 are other liquids that may be employed with more or 

 less success, whilst boiling water is certain death to 

 any that it may reach, in whatever stage of life they 

 may be. 



For the vapour method, sulphuric dioxide appears to 



