Daily press. [volume] (Newport News, Va.) 1896-current, 1898-02-27
OLDEST OF INSECTS.
The HUMBLE CoCKROACH KING OF
ALL HIS KIND.

lions of Years by the Fossils In Rocks OF
the Si!urian Period He Was ALWAYS a
Rover and a Scavepger.
There is doubtless many a good house
Eifc in this world who wonders as She
shascs about tho kitchen and tho i>sntrv,
pokin2 into dark hooks and crannics Will,
her pail of hot water or box of poison,
whatever the little pests called Cockroachcs
are hero for anyway and what good they
do. These questions would be rather diff
cult to answer. for, like most of natures
schvcngers-and they or most of their
varieties ut least have certainly been such
in the paSt-they have obtrudcd in these
times of advanced sanitary arrangements
ana modern Improvements whCre their
services might well be dispensed with
But there is no doubt. however much we
may begrudgc the little insects a few tiny,
warm crevices in our homes or an coca
sional burial place in our buildings and
cuisine at the summer hotel, that by all
recognized laws of priority they have at
least as much right here as we have for
their very, very great grandsrcs were set
tiers upon this earth many ages before our
progcnitors were even thought Of
In Bible times their presence was far
moro disagrccably felt than in our own,
both on account of the different and more
slovcniy mode of living that prevailed
among those peoples and of the warm eli
mate of the countries of which tho Bible
tells. And it is probable, although no dis.
t!nct mention is made of the cockroach in
tho Scriptures rs among the animals of
Noah, that it was nevertheless in the very
vanguard of the procession that so nlacidly
wendell its way into tho ark Even the
first Of her kind, the wife of Adam. was
unGuestionably acquainted with the little
SIX footed creatures. But Eve was "a very
happy go lucky sort of dame and was as
little troubled with household cares and
T1ctuAls as she was with fashion, and it is
likely that the fact Of their existence did
not weigh heavily upon her mind
Tho antiquity of the cockronch how
evor, is not rockoEcd by the thousands of
years with which wo commonly compute
our vast stretches of historic time, but bv
tho millions and millions upon millions
Its beginning takes us back through misty
and unfablod ages, past the epochs of the
gigantic inastodon and tho tremendous
glaciers thnt swept over tho northern pnrt
OF this land, to disappear beneath n warm
or southern sun; past the epoch of the
hugo and horrible reptiles that wandered
over the universal marshlnnlls and hogs
and fitted through tho air with their
strange, Tapping wings, like the 1icntis in
iic'i'o' phse thc iohS period
- VIZ ~" III ''n' soilUu''es Oh inc carbon
li.touS ioies'S, "hni' inc great forces of
"o'u "e "'ff- s'oiliis away thc rlch
Aoia y, 'on' ii'to "h'ch we da''c today;
past the time when whales and giant
sharks and sea monsters dashed the waters
into foam, the monarchS OF the oceans
1helr origin carries us back to the very
commencement of things. They were ono
OF the earliest of TIE forms of life and the
sn;I ..rrh,, n,.n - IN 80 sum '''c mas
s,,, >, VIZ y, "o 81 f"'S VI ih-
I,no,,a, s.,,,,f,,4 - 49, Nih,t'
+h,t 49,, $3.50 oe"' oi'c' ''ii US
fnunJ l,,,, t,n,r, -, 49, , "'o
+hnr;,,,,;I,r - " ,"o "to Known us
.''i Mlilcn were formed such
70 ,+ -. .,''o r,.y u"i alum
unlikc their lincol dcsconG,n+s ~ t,,,-
tho principal difference hninc =. 49,;
wings, and it is probable thnt should ~
of these ancient creatures hn in son,o ,, U.'v
resurrccted and 90 sc1rrying across tho
kitchen floor it would he STAINED on wifi
as little thought and communications ,s ava
its modern kindred AS these winns con,
stitutc the chief and often the only menus
Of studying their species. the bodies b,v
ing in most cases been wholly dissolvn1
by putrctncsion, it is pcrhaus worthy of
notc that their development ,yas moro nor
feet than in tho present yarictics-cycrpt
ing the hind or und,r wines ,.bi.I @
almost idcntical-and that they orn nrc
served i'll the fossils to the minutest rctIcu-
lntion of tho membrane
With the lapse of ages the forms and
shape of the wings grnduallv ,,ndcr,v,nr -
change, or rather a series of chonroc ne
well RS the size Of the body. n,,d th,. nrio
inul fumily spread out into n ,nn,tituJ,ee
species 1t has ALWAYS hcnn y INV ~ n,-
turo that all forms of lifo shall advance
from Il simple uniformity to {, connl,x al
vcrsity or from homogencitv to hotcrorn-
ncity, and it is curious to observe TINT no
less than 600 species existing nrior tn tho
tertiary epoch, when the first mammal Hfr
was introduced into the world, have been
thus far discovered and described many
of them being found in tho ,o,l ,,o,s,,,ng,
Investigations of late yc,rs huvo don,o,
strntcd, in fact, that Anerica, as is South
America today, was tho most fruitful of