156 LITTLE FOLKS 
LET ME INTRODUCE HIM. 
Are you acquainted with Blatta Domestica ? I'll warrant his 
trim, brown coat is perfectly familiar to you, if you live in a city. 
You've found him in your trunks and bureaus ; cook finds him in 
the bread dough ; he gets smothered in the flour barrel, and 
drowhed in the dish-water. He's very shy, though, and you 
wouldn't be likely to see him at all, unless he met with some 
accident. 
You can hear him, however, if you'll sit still a few minutes in 
a dark room, in New York city, and a good many other cities. 
You'll soon be aware of thousands of light footsteps all over the 
floor. Papa and Mamma Blatta will be out, and all the children and 
grandchildren, aunts, uncles and cousins. Gay times they'll have, 
till you make a noise or strike a light ; then they will disappear, 
and you may hunt an hour, and not a sign of one can you find. 
Perhaps you'll know him better if I tell you his every-day 
name, for Blatta Domestica is his scientific book name. You call 
him simply, Cockroach. 
He's a very pretty fellow — though perhaps you don't think so, 
— his eyes are blue and white, (did you know that?) and his droll, 
flat body is a rich brown. Then he's such a quick little fellow. 
No matter how suddenly you strike a light, he's out of sight almost 
in an instant, and he doesn't use his wings either, he just runs, 
darting like an arrow across the room. 
He's got one thing that I guess you'd like, and that is a pair 
of jaws that can bite even wood. You wouldn't need nut crackers 
or saws if you had such teeth, or mandibles, the books call them. 
You know if we want to be very wise, we'll have to remember 
some of the book names. 
There is another curious thing about him — he is very hard to 
kill. You may cut off his head, and it will run off on two legs, 
while the body runs away on four. Of course you know by this 
time that all insects have six legs. You may split him open, cut 
off his legs, or any other horrid experiment you choose to try, and 
