The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-05-11

material Ills. III is Ine Simplest OL' al
Catch three cockroaches and put them
into bottle Take the bottle to a cross
roads. Turn it INSIDE down, and while
the reaches are dropping out, repeat three
Credos aloud. All the cockroaehes in
the house from which these three were
taken will instantly pack their things
and go, so it is said.
IT don't believe it,"
The Maternal CochrOach.
THE mother mosquito may launch her
silvery boat of forty dozen eggs on the
still waters in the early morning and then
sing the happy hours away while she
seeks her one chance in three million TO
imbrue her pumps in warm red blood,
but the mother cockroach remembers who
she IS and Of what long lineage she comes,
and does her sixteen eggs up In a nice neat
case. which she carries about with her
till she feels the thrill of life within it.
Then she helps the little ones rip open the
crinlzled seam of the valise and teaches
them their first lesson of economy by
eating up the empty egg-case. They re-
member 1t when their baby clothes burst
off them and they come out, white and
soft. They do not send their cast-off gar
ments to sufferers by flood and famine;
they eat them. Mother cockroach broods
the little ones and protects them. Indeed,
| know of no more touching spectacle than
a happy cockroach home with all the lit
tie ones playing around, climbing over
Uncle George, or sitting on Uncle Harry's
back, or cuddlng under mother or Aunt
Eliza. (The names, of course, are fcti-
tious, but the fact may be easily easily
verifed)
The progeny of a pair of early spring
house flies will number 100000 before the
summer Is ended, so IL is calculated, but
under the most favorable conditions there
will not be more than one brood of sixteen
I I'D f1R no
thought that it took the young from four
to five years to grow up, but that was
too extravagant a guess. Observation
shows that the Croton bug natures in
from four and a half to six months, and
specimens of Periplaneta Americana, the
standard American cockroach, Matched on
July II, began to go out in society between
March II and June Il of the following
| year In the colder climates they retire
| from active business to winter quarters
| where they hibernate.
Being so few in family, it is evident
| that the life of the cockroach is good
| insurance risk as compared with that OF
the fly the moth, or any other of the six
| legged tribe. Why? In all these millions
| of years since the era of the Coal Meas
ures he has learned how to live. He is
| smooth; he Is agile; he is thin, hard to
| catch and easy to hide His eyes may not
| amount to much to warn him Of the APP
| like his mouth parts, 50 that he may see
what he is eating but his antennae are
| hundred joints In length, sensitive to doors,
| but especially to jolts and jars, which are
| what sounds must be to an insect. The
| old Romans called the cockroach lucifuga.
fleeing the light, but the old Romans did
| not observe closely or they would have
| seen that it was not the light that the in
| sects fled from, but the one that carried
it. Flash light on them all you like.
They do not object. But take step,
| whose tremor Is conveyed to the walls and
| floor, and sets their antennae to swaying
and the scuf1ling of their wings shows how
anxious they are to get away under
! cover"
Varieties of CoclSroaches.
1.-THE Croton bug is rather the smallest
of the reach house-population. He is five
eighths of an inch in length at maturity,
Is light brown, with two dark brown
stripes on his thorax! AS becomes an in
habitant of this continent of great things,
the Periplaneta Americana is the biggest,
though the tropical drummer which
| beats rhythmically on the woodwork with
his wings is two inches long and measures
three inches from tip to tip of his out
spread wings. 1t is said that there is
very gay-colored cousin under the equa-
tor six inches in length.
What the English story-books call the
black beetle is really a. cockroach, Orient
al in its orisin. What makes our English
cousins give il this name is because it is
not beetle and is not black, but a dark
brown. The males have shortened wings,
and the females have hardly any. This
is as it should be. There is too mucn CAD
ding about by the sex.
1.-THE Australian variety. being a good
sailor fond of the rowing life, the warmth
and moisture of the forecastle, to say
nothing of its picturesque untidiness, is
/
| the world. thanks to ocean-boIn traffic.
He has yellow band on the upper chest
| and a yellow dash on the sides of his up
per wings.
.'You will never find these four varieties
dwelling together in amity in one house.
Like the good old Tory that he Is, the
cockroach is intolerant to the last de-
gree. II he cannot beat his kinsman in the
battle to the death, he em,grares to an
other house, where he may hide in n
crack in the wall, according to the dictates
OF his conscience. The cockroach is thor
oughly in accord with Gov. Roosevelt in
his advocacy of the strenuous life lie
never gets enough fighting while he lives.
Put in a bowl with an opposition cock
roach he furnishes as fine yladiatorial
show for the money as one could ask for.
At the conclusion the victor gathers up
the fragments of his adversary, and that
nothing may be left, eats them. This form
of entertainment is deservedly popular
among the Chinese"
The CocISroach n Snob.
"Six-legged or two-legged, The true cock
roach aristocrat has no desire 20 mix
with the mob. He believes in sticking
with his own set. He holds the others
off. For, in the struggle for existence,
to have too many fond of You is distinct
ly to lessen your chance of survival. For
Instance, what IS It makes the existence
of the vanilla grower one ceaseless vigil?
What but the fact that from rcot-tip to
hower-bud the vanilla plant Is popular
With all kinds Of creatures. with back
bones and without them, snelled and un-
shelled, furred, feathered and fuzzy
winged, walking and crawling? That is
why at all hours Of the day ana night the
vanilla grower must be eternally saying
'Shoo therer
"The cockroach is no vanilla plant
Nothing like 1t. He has a vor,tEough,
that defends him as well as 10 he bristled
with spines. He is not hail-fellow-well-