Cockroaches, like the Wise Men, originally lived in the East. They were
at first far from hardy--wretched travelers, hating changes of climate.
But when England began trading with the Orient, the cockroach grew
venturesome, and began putting to sea as a stowaway. It was thus he
reached England.
He settled down at first in her seaports. Remained there for years.
People inland heard of him, or saw him if they went to the coast, but
supposed themselves immune from his visits. Now he owns the whole
island. And wherever the Englishman has journeyed, or settled, or
trafficked, except perhaps on the ice-floes of Labrador, we now find the
cockroach.
We all know his habits. He prefers to live in kitchens and bakeries.
Eats all kinds of food. Eats shoes and the bindings of books. Also eats
his own relatives. Any relative that isn't good and lively is at once
eaten up.
You can tell the sexes apart (if you want to) by this: The males don't
drag their stomachs on the ground the way the females do, and they have
better wings. Their wings are not good enough to use much, but still,
they have little ones.
The most surprising thing about roaches is that they live several years.
Scientists say maybe five. Owing to this they get to know all of a
family's ways, and can't be caught napping; they have plenty of time to
study roach powders and learn to digest them. They dislike castor oil,
though, and keep away from where it has been rubbed.
Cockroaches are intelligent beings. Their natures are human. They are
not like other insects, any more than dogs are like other animals. I
wish some man of science and sympathy would interpret their lives.
That book that I dream of on roaches: will it ever be written? Brown
Beauty, or Only a Cockroach, by Mary Gook Twillee--a book that little
children would read with wet eyes Sunday evenings. No, that sounds like
a pamphlet from the Society for the Prevention of Stepping on
Cockroaches. We want nothing humanitarian. Still less, a Work on the
subject. We want a poet to do for the cockroach what Maeterlinck has
done for the Bee.
If nobody else will, I shall probably have to do it myself.
* * * * *
Since boyhood (I shall begin) I have felt the injustice of men to the
roach. Or not men, no; but women. Men are in this matter more tolerant,
more live-and-let-live in their ways. But women have condemned the roach
not only unheard, but unjudged. Not one of them has ever tried petting a
roach to gain his affection. Not one of them has studied him or
encouraged him to show his good side. Some cockroaches, for instance,
are exceedingly playful and gay, but what chance have they to show this,
when being stepped on, or chased with a broom? Suppose we had treated
dogs this way; scared them; made fugitives of them!
No, the human race, though kind to its favorites, is cruel to others.
The pale little, lovable cockroach has been given no show. If a
housewife would call to her roaches as she does to her hens, "Here
chick-chick, here cock-cock, here roaches," how they would come
scampering! They would eat from her hand and lay eggs for her--they do
now, in fact.
"But the eggs are not legible--I mean edible," an excited reader
objects. How do you know, my poor prejudiced reader? Have you ever tried
them? And suppose they are not. Is that the fault of the cockroach or
God?
We should learn that blind enmity is not the attitude to take toward
strangers. The cockroach has journeyed from Asia to come to our shores;
and because he looked queer, like most Asiatics, he has been condemned
from the start. The charges are that he is dirty and that he eats the
food we leave lying around. Well, well, well! Eats our food, does he? Is
that a crime? Do not birds do the same? And as to his being dirty, have
you ever kept dogs in your home? One dog will bring in more dust and mud
and loose hairs in a day, than a colony, an empire, of cockroaches will
in a year.
It is easy enough to drive cockroaches away if you wish. Not with powder
or poison: this only arouses their obstinacy. The right way is to import
other insects that prey upon roaches. The hawk-ticks exterminate them as
readily as wimples do moles. The only thing to remember is that then you
have the hawk-ticks on hand, and they float around the ceiling, and
pounce down, and hide in your ears.
You may be sure that _some_ insects will live with you. It's only a
question which kind.
I remember Mr. Burbank once denied this when we talked of the matter.
Alluding to the fact that the cockroach likes to eat other roaches, he
said why not breed a roach that wouldn't eat anything else? When one
introduced these into the home they would first eat the old timers, and
then quietly devour each other until all were gone.
But how could a home remain bare of insects? Nature abhors such a
vacuum. Some men would like to cover the whole world with porcelain
tiles, and make old Mother Earth, as we know her, disappear from our
view. They would sterilize and scrub the whole planet, so as to make the
place sanitary. Well, I too feel that way at times: we all have finicky
moments. But in my robust hours I sympathize with Nature. A hygienic
kitchen is unnatural. It should be swarming with life. (The way mine
is.)
I see a great deal of the roach when I visit my kitchen. His habits, to
be sure, are nocturnal. But, then, so are mine. However, with a little
arranging, it is simple to prevent awkward clashes. I do not like
cockroaches on my table at supper, for instance. Very well, I merely get
me a table with carved spiral legs. The roach cannot climb up such legs.
To hump himself over them bruises him, and injures his stomach. And if
he tries to follow the spiral and goes round and round, he soon becomes
dizzy and falls with plaintive cries to the floor. He can climb up my
own legs, since they are not spiral, you say? Yes, but I rub castor oil
on them before I enter the kitchen.
The cockroach has a fascinating personality. He is not socialistic and
faithful, like the ant, for example: he is anarchistic, wild,
temperamental, and fond of adventure. He is also contemplative by
nature, like other philosophers. How many an evening, at midnight, when
I have wanted a sandwich, I have found him and his friends standing
still, lost in thought, by the sink. When I poke him up, he blinks with
his antennae and slowly makes off. On the other hand, he can run at high
speed when the cook is pursuing him. And he zigzags his course most
ingeniously. He uses his head. Captain Dodge, of the British Navy, who
first used this method to escape from a submarine, is said to have
learned how to zigzag from the cockroaches aboard his own ship. They
should go down in history, those roaches, with the geese that saved
Rome.
Again and again I have tried to make a pet of the cockroach, for I
believe under his natural distrust he has an affectionate nature. But
some hostile servant has invariably undone my work. The only roach I
succeeded in taming was hardly a pet, because he used to hide with the
others half the time when he saw me, and once in a fit of resentment he
bit a hole in my shoe. Still, he sometimes used to come at my call when
I brought him warm tea. Poor fellow! poor Logan!--as I called him. He
had a difficult life. I think he was slightly dyspeptic. Perhaps the tea
was not good for him. He used to run about uttering low, nervous moans
before moulting; and when his time came to mate, I thought he never
would find the right doe. How well I remember my thrill when he picked
one at last, and when I knew that I was about to see their nuptial
flight. Higher and higher they circled over the clean blue linoleum,
with their short wings going so fast they fairly crackled, till the air
was electric: and then, swirling over the dresser, their great moment
came. Unhappily, Logan, with his usual bad luck, bumped the bread-box.
The doe, with a shrill, morose whistle, went and laid on the floor; but
Logan seemed too balked to pursue her. His flight was a failure.
He rapidly grew old after this, and used to keep by himself. He also got
into the habit of roaming around outdoors at night. Hated to see other
roaches mating by the bread-box, perhaps. As he was too big to crawl
back in under the door when we shut it, he was sometimes locked out when
he roamed, and had to wait until morning. This in the end caused his
death. One winter evening, blocked at the door, he climbed the
fire-escape and tried to get in the bathroom window. But it chanced to
be shut. He hung there all night, barking hoarsely--and I heard him, but
never thought it was Logan. When I went to look at the thermometer in
the morning, there he lay in the snow.