three simple ones, sees a creature larger than itself bearing down upon it, it instantly doubles itself into a ball, and rolls away to a place of safety.

These insects only come out to revel in the bright sunshine. When night draws nigh, they all seek some warm snug corner, and sleep away the long dark hours, coming out again when day appears, as bright and brisk as ever, to flaunt their brilliant colours and dazzle their less favoured fellows.

Perhaps by their names of "Golden-tailed" and "Ruby-tailed" flies they may be more generally known. And those who have once seen them must admit that these little insects.rank among the most beautiful living gems in the vast store of Nature's jewellery.

Flitting in wildering maze before my dazzled sight."

A FRIENDLESS INSECT.

FAR away in the extreme north of Europe, in a country known often by name only, live a curious, physicallyundeveloped people called the Lapps. They are SO small in stature as to be despised by their stalwart neighbours the Scandinavians, and so ugly in feature as to have earned for themselves the character of being an inferior race, remarkable only for craft and treachery. The Lapps are, however, not so bad as they are painted. They show great mental capacity, especially in acquiring languages, and manual skill, and principally subsist on the fruits of their own toil. It seems a pity that, not only should

COCKROACH.

these people, so worthy of praise, be despised by their neighbours, but that they should unwillingly be compelled to harbour a hideous insect, which by reason of its voracious appetite and large numbers has been known to devour the hardly-gained fish supply of a whole village.

The Lapps are not, however, the only sufferers from this obnoxious insect, although they rank among the chief. There is, probably, scarcely a country on the face of the globe which is not infested by, and hardly a house perfectly free from, the disgusting-looking creatures. They have one redeeming feature—namely, they like bugs. Would that they liked nothing else, for, if such were the case, the bugs would soon, by reason of the ravages made by their numerous consumers, be exterminated, and the "blackbeetles," as these insects are commonly but erroneously called, would then themselves die for lack of food. Alas! there is no such luck in store for housewives.

Cockroaches (this is their proper name) eat anything and everything that comes in their way. Meat, bread, sugar, soap, paper, the blacking off your boots, and, when there is no more blacking, the leather itself; their own cast-off skins, the dead bodies of their nearest and dearest, and the live bodies, too, when other food is scarce; the cases in which they deposit their eggs,-all alike help to satiate the bottomless appetites of these crawling and sometimes flying pests.

It is difficult to get rid of them. Cucumber skins and potato peelings have been recommended as poisons for cockroaches; but, except for giving them a bad quarter of an hour with horrible indigestion, they are of no use.

Traps of all kinds have been invented, such as a basin of treacle with nice little bridges arranged round it leading up from the ground to the edge of the bowl. The insects are induced to walk along them by the sweet scent of the treacle, and when they get to the top of the bridge, and the object of their journey is within reach, in they tumble, and experience the truth of the old saying that it is possible to have "too much of a good thing." Let one escape, however, with its life from such a trap, and no more are caught in a like manner, for with those ceaselessly moving antennæ of his, the ex-prisoner tells all his brethren of the perils he has passed through, and gives them a solemn warning-which they evidently heed--to avoid sweet sticks in future. It has been found that almost the only thing they can't endure is borax, Sprinkle powdered borax freely in the crevices where they hide in the daytime, and they will frequent your kitchen no more. By a continual application of the salt, the insects will soon be compelled to seek for suitable quarters elsewhere.

There are a great many kinds of cockroach. Perhaps that which infests our houses is the least objectionable of all; because, although it has, like other insects