ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 



Dishes of food left uncovered at night are often utterly ruined in this way by the morn- 

 irig, and their contents have simply to be thrown away. 



Remedies. — A clean kitchen, with well-scoured sink and no damp places or neglected 

 dark corners, will usually be fairly, if not entirely, free from these creatures, as the con- 

 ditions are not favorable to their multiplication. But if they should become established, 

 it is necessary to wage an active warfare against them. First we should recommend a 

 thorough "house cleaning" of the kitchen, pantries and parts adjacent, moving everything 

 under which they could possibly squeeze their flat bodies, and killing all that can be 

 found ; then apply powdered borax to all cracks and crevices in the floors, skirting boards^ 

 wainscots or walls. This will usually be found effective, and the cockroaches will disap- 

 pear ; but if not fully exterminated at once the powdered borax should be applied again 

 after a short interval. It is, happily, a clean substance, and its use is attended with no 

 unpleasantness. 



Another remedy that is highly recommended is the use of Pyrethrum insect powder. 

 This must be fresh and applied liberally to all places frequented by the insects. It is» 

 however, much more expensive than borax, and involves more trouble, as the cockroaches 

 are usually only partially paralyzed by it, and require to be searched for in the morning 

 and destroyed in the fire. If the infested portion of a building can be made air-tight, the 

 insect powder may be burnt and the fumes will penetrate into every crevice and destroy 

 the creatures in their hiding-places ; but this plan can rarely be carried out effectively. 

 Instead of burning insect powder, bisulphide of carbon might be evaporated with still 

 more deadly effect ; but this is too dangerous a remedy to be employed in a dwelling house. 



A simple mode of trapping them has been found very useful. Any deep vessel or jar 

 may be used. Place against it a number of sticks bent over so as to project a very little 

 way into the interior ; half fill the vessel with stale beer, for which the insects have a 

 special fondness. In the morning great quantities of dead and dying specimens will be 

 found, which have climbed up the sticks and dropped into the liquid within. By frequent 

 use of a trap of this kind the number of cockroaches on the premises may be very satis- 

 factorily reduced. 



House Ants. 



Next to the cockroaches, the insects mostly complained of by housekeepers for 

 their depredations upon the domestic stores are what may be called the u House Ants," 

 as distinguished from those that live out of doors and rarely come into dwellings. The 



Fig. 34. — The red ant (Monomorium pbaraonis); 

 a, female; b, worker — much enlarged. (After Riley.) 



species about which I receive the most enquiries, and which has been very troublesome 

 in my own house in the summer time, is the little reddish-yellow ant (Fig. 34) (Mono- 

 morium pharaonis, Linn). Another species, about equally common and troublesome is 

 the little black ant (M. minulum, Mayr.) Th9 former makes its nest in the house itself 

 as a rule, finding a suitable place under the flooring or in the wall behind the plaster ; 

 it sometimes selects for its abode a place near a hot water pipe and in such cases con- 



