INDIAN COCKROACHES.

Waikato Times, Volume 2656, Issue 2656, 20 July 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

INDIAN COCKROACHES.

I should like to make your flesh creep, is the involuntary thought of one who essays to describe the Indian cockroach. Who that has been in India does not know the flat, shining, ill-savoured, codee-coloured thing, seen only in diuilylighted places—the eyes starting out of the head ; the long, ever moving feelers; the swift, uncertain movements : the sudden, uncontrolled flight, when he dashes perhaps into your face and for a brief and horrible moment his clammy legs cling to your skin ? What a life he must lead ? Ever in cowardly terror of his life, his perpetual instinct is to hide himself. From some dark corner lie glares at you with guilty eye. As he darts from place to place he knows you will kill him if you can, aud he know he deserves to be killed. Even in the houses of the land the cockroach is not unknown. Boots, gloves, =uid books bear witness to his ravages, and a pungent smell betrays his presence in your wardrobe. But the paradise of the cockroach is a ship. It is in the depths of the ship's hold, where he may hide among the cargo undisturbed and feed on all rank things, that he is in his glory. Happily, he seems unable to live except in tropical heat, so that in the great passenger steamers constantly returning to Europe he is seldom seen. The home of his heart is the hold of the ship whose course is limited to trophical seas. There, among the bales of rice and kegs of oil, where darkness reigns and the air is hot and foul, and where human foot rarely intrudes, he roams at will from post to post. Thence the more veuturous spirits ascend to the upper decks aud haunt saloons and cabins, and especially pantries and store-rooms, where corners and crevices shelter them, and there arc endless chances of " loot." Hcnce comes the chief ingredient of that sickly atmosphere which strikes the scuseon descending from the outer air, and often makes a voyage in such a vessel a penance indeed. In the daytime the cockroach lies hid, but no sooner are the lamps lighted than he wakes to his nightly career of ghastly play and plunder. On the first day of the voyage you will kill one or two and hope you are rid of them ; but it was an idle feat—the place of the slain is quicky taken by others, and the reserve is inexhaustible. Your cabin becomes untenable, and you resign it to the cockroach ; or, if you must sleep there, you hurry off your clothes in a fever of haste and dash into the shelter of your curtains where you hope for peace, and, if proper care is taken, may find it. If you sleep without curtains, tradition has it that the cockroach will feed on your nails and eye brows.