Cockroaches are even more voracious than crickets. A small species
(_Blatta Lapponica_, LINN.), occasionally met with about London, is
said to swarm numerously in the huts of the Laplanders, and will
sometimes, in conjunction with a carrion-beetle (_Silpha Lapponica_,
LINN.), devour, we are told, in a single day, their whole store of
dried fish.
In London, and many other parts of the country, cockroaches, originally
introduced from abroad, have multiplied so prodigiously as to be a
great nuisance. They are often so numerous in kitchens and lower rooms
in the metropolis as literally to cover the floor, and render it
impossible for them to move, except over each other’s bodies. This,
indeed, only happens after dark, for they are strictly night insects,
and the instant a candle is intruded upon the assembly they rush
towards their hiding-places, so that in a few seconds not one of the
countless multitude is to be seen.
In consequence of their numbers, independently of their carnivorous
propensities, they are driven to eat anything that comes in their
way; and, besides devouring every species of kitchen-stuff, they gnaw
clothes, leather, and books. They likewise pollute everything they
crawl over, with an unpleasant nauseous smell.
These “black-beetles,” however, as they are commonly called, are
harmless when compared with the foreign species, the giant cockroach
(_Blatta gigantea_), which is not content with devouring the stores of
the larder, but will attack human bodies, and even gnaw the extremities
of the dead and dying.--(Drury’s _Illustrations of Nat. Hist._ iii.
_Pref._)
Cockroaches, at least the kind that is most abundant in Britain, hate
the light, and never come forth from their hiding-places till the
lights are removed or extinguished (the _Blatta Germanica_, however,
which abounds in some houses, is bolder, making its appearance in
the day, and running up the walls and over the tables, to the great
annoyance of the inhabitants). In the London houses, especially on the
ground-floor, they are most abundant, and consume everything they can
find--flour, bread, meat, clothes, and even shoes. As soon as light,
natural or artificial, appears, they all scamper off as fast as they
can, and vanish in an instant.
These pests are not indigenous to this country, and perhaps nowhere
in Europe, but are one of the evils which commerce has imported.
In Captain Cook’s last voyage, the ships, while at Husheine, were
infested with incredible numbers of these creatures, which it was found
impossible by any means to destroy. Every kind of food, when exposed
only for a few minutes, was covered with them, and pierced so full of
holes, that it resembled a honeycomb. They were so fond of ink that
they ate out the writing on labels. Captain Cook’s cockroaches were of
two kinds--the _Blatta Orientalis_ and _Germanica_.--(_Encyc. Britan._)