INSECTS 



When the young roaches first liberate themselves from 

 the capsule, they are helpless creatures, for each is con- 

 tained in a close-fitting membrane that binds its folded 

 legs and antennae tightly to the body and keeps the head 

 pressed down against the breast (Fig. 51 A). The inclos- 

 ing sheath, however, a film so delicate as to be almost 

 invisible, is soon burst by the struggling of the little roach 

 anxious to be free — it splits and rapidly slides down over 

 the body (B), from which it is at last pushed off. The 

 shrunken, discarded remnant of the skin is now such an 

 insignificant flake that it scarce seems possible it so re- 

 cently could have enveloped the body of the insect. 



The newly liberated young roach dashes off on its slim 

 legs with an activity quite surprising in a creature that has 

 never had the use of its legs before. It is so slender of 

 figure (Fig. 51 C) that it does not look like a roach, and it is 

 pale and colorless except for a mass of bright green material 

 in its abdomen. But, almost at once, it begins to change; 

 the back plates of the thorax flatten out, the body shortens 

 by the overlapping of its segments, the abdomen takes on 

 a broad, pear-shaped outline, the head is retracted be- 

 neath the prothoracic shield, and by the end of half an 

 hour the little insect is unmistakably a young cockroach 



The roaches have a potent enemy in the house centipede, 

 that creature of so many legs (Fig. 52) that it looks like 

 an animated blur as it occasionally darts across the living- 

 room floor or disappears in the shades of the basement 

 before you are sure whether you have seen something or 

 not, but which is often trapped in the bathtub, where its 

 appearance is likely to drive the housewife into hysteria. 

 Unless you are fond of roaches, however, the house centi- 

 pede should be protected and encouraged. The writer 

 once placed one of these centipedes in a covered glass dish 

 containing a female Croton bug and a capsule of her eggs 

 which were hatching. No sooner were the young roaches 

 running about than the centipede began a feast which 



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