PREFACE. XI 



creatures reconcile this conduct with the laws of morality and honesty? But 

 even for that most detested of all creatures, the cockroach, I can add a word of 

 praise. There is nothing new under the sun, so says the proverb. I believed, 

 until a few years back, that I possessed the knowledge of a fact in the dietetic 

 economy of the cockroach of which entomologists were not cognizant, but I find 

 myself forestalled ; the fact is as old as the lulls ; it is that the cockroach seeks 

 with diligence, and devours with great gusto, the common bed-bug. I will not 

 mention names, but I am so confident of the veracity of the narrator that I 

 willingly take the entire responsibility. " Poverty makes one acquainted with 

 strange bedfellows," and my informer bears willing testimony to the trath of 

 the adage : he had not been prosperous, and had sought shelter in a London 

 boarding-house: every night he saw cockroaches ascending his bed-curtains; every 

 morning he complained to his very respectable landlady, and invariably received 

 the comforting assurance that there was not a "black beetle" or a bug in the 

 house, and if he had seen such a thing, he must have brought it to the house in his 

 clothes : still he pursued his nocturnal investigations, and he not only saw cockroaches 

 running along the tester of the bed, but, to his great astonishment, he positively 

 observed one of them seize a bug, and he therefore concluded, and not without 

 some show of reason, that the cockroaches ascended the curtains with this especial 

 object, and that the minor and more odoriferous insect is a favourite food of the 

 major one. The following extract from Webster's " Narrative of Foster's Voyage " 

 corroborates this recent observation, and illustrates the proverb which I have taken 

 as my text. " Cockroaches, those nuisances to ships, are plentiful at St. Helena ; 

 and yet, bad as they are, they are more endurable than bugs. Previous to our 

 arrival here in the ' Chanticleer ' we had suffered great inconvenience from the 

 latter, but the cockroaches no sooner made their appearance than the bugs entirely 

 disappeared ; the fact is, that the cockroach preys on them, and leaves no sign 

 or vestige of where they have been : so far it is a most valuable insect/' Whether 

 this " word for the cockroach " will reconcile housekeepers to its presence is doubtful ; 

 no one likes to acknowledge the existence in his house of " the minor and more 

 odoriferous insect," and the axiom that " the greater includes the less " might, 

 here also prove true. 



However, let us suppose that the Butterflies on the setting-boards nave fairly 

 escaped the mice, the wasps, and the cockroaches, and have thoroughly dried, 

 and are quite fit to remove I recommend that they be left at least ten days 

 then comes Che question, the very important question, of what to do with them. 

 Of course, they must be removed to a cabinet, abont which I have a good deal to 

 say. A well-made cabinet is of the greatest importance, and is not to be obtained 

 without some difficulty and expense. Every cabinet-maker will at once take 

 your order; but an habitual tradesman - like acumen will prevent his doing 



