COCKROACHES 7 



which it flits hither and thither in its restless 

 activity. 



Cockroaches are very difficult to catch. 

 They practically never walk, but run with 

 a hardly believable rapidity, darting to and 

 fro in an apparently erratic mode of pro- 

 gression. Even when caught they are not 

 easily retained, for they have all the slipperi- 

 ness of a highly polished billiard-ball. They 

 have great powers of flattening their bodies, 

 and they slip out of one's hand with an amaz- 

 ing dexterity. Besides their slipperiness they 

 have another weapon, and that is a wholly 

 unpleasant and most intolerable odour, which 

 is due to the secretion of a couple of glands 

 situated on the back of the abdomen. The 

 glands which produce this repellent odour 

 are sunk in the soft membrane which unites 

 the fifth and sixth abdominal segments, and 

 the moment a cockroach is attacked it exudes 

 a sticky, glue-like fluid, which gives out this 

 most unendurable smell. The fluid is extra- 

 ordinarily tenacious and difficult to remove 

 from the hand of those who have touched 

 the insects. No doubt the cockroach, in 

 nature, finds safety in this from the attacks of 

 insectivorous animals. 



Cockroaches, as has been said, very rarely 

 walk, they nearly always run, and they ad- 

 vance the first and third leg of one side at 



