KATYDIDS AND THEIR KIN. 201 



members of the family, it feeds mainly at night, ap- 

 pearing to detest and avoid the light, as one can 

 readily prove by taking a lighted lamp suddenly into 

 its haunts, when a hurried scrambling will take place 

 towards its daylight retreats, and but a few moments 

 will elapse before the last of the busy marauders will 

 have disappeared. 



This is probably the most carnivorous of all our 

 cockroaches, though, like most others, it is fond of 

 starchy food. It is known to feed upon meat, cheese, 

 woolen clothes, and even old leather, and is said to be 

 especially fond of the festive bed-bug, Acanthia lectu- 

 laria L., which soon disappears from a house infested 

 with the Oriental roach. 



Its eggs are sixteen in number, an'd the large horny 

 capsule or ob'theca in which they are packed is carried 

 about by the mother for a week or longer when she 

 drops it in a warm and sheltered place. Along one 

 side of the capsule, which resembles in form and color a 

 diminutive seed of the papaw, Asimina triloba Dunal, 

 is a seam where the two edges are cemented closely 

 together. When the young are hatched they excrete a 

 liquid which dissolves the cement and enables them 

 to escape without assistance, leaving their infantile 

 receptacle as entire as it was before they quitted it. 



In Indiana the Oriental roach is found in all the 

 larger towns and cities, and is one of the most noisome 

 and disagreeable insects with which certain classes of 

 their inhabitants have to contend. It seldom occurs in 

 houses in thinly settled localities, and never, as far as 

 my observation goes, beneath the bark of logs and 

 stumps. 



