CHAPTER VI 



COCKROACHES 

 Ectobia germanica et al. 



COCKROACHES are exceedingly annoying from the mere 

 fact of their presence and their disgusting proneness to get 

 into things. Often they become of considerable economic 

 importance because of their destructiveness. Several 

 instances are recorded where they have defaced the bind- 

 ings of books in libraries. The paste with which the 

 bindings of books are put on is very attractive to these 

 insects and in getting at the paste, the cloth and leather 

 bindings are often scraped and defaced. In fact, 

 cockroaches are almost omnivorous, eating cereals, 

 bread, biscuits, and almost any dead animal matter. 

 They occasionally injure leather covered furniture and 

 are said to eat their own cast skins, and even living 

 members of their own species, thus becoming can- 

 nibalistic. 



It is really in large hotels and restaurants, about baker- 

 ies and on board ships that the cockroach becomes a 

 serious and disgusting pest. Persons in private homes 

 have no adequate notion of the cockroach as a pest. 

 There are reliable accounts of these insects occurring in 

 such numbers on board vessels that the whole supply of 

 ship biscuits was either devoured or put in such a filthy 

 condition that they could not be used as food. 

 124 



