Of course they found their way to the United States of America, and in many houses in the North they have taken lodging. But down South, where it is always warm enough, they have prospered greatly, and they are there in far greater numbers than in the North.
Besides, there is a large American cockroach that belongs to tropical America, but that has found its way pretty well over the country. And there are cockroaches that live in the woods, some of them coming in the night to visit our houses and help themselves from our pantries.
Yes, Mollie, the cockroaches eat almost anything they can find, and what they do not eat they spoil by an ill-smelling liquid they give out when disturbed.
It is this liquid that makes the cockroaches so very offensive to us. We cannot bear to touch one because of it.
Cockroaches eat one variety of food that nobody objects to their having. They are fond of bed bugs and greedily devour them.
Besides the large, dark, reddish brown cockroaches there is a little tan-colored fellow that is often very troublesome.
It is not a native of this country, but is supposed to have been brought to England by soldiers from the Crimea, and later it found its way to America.
We call it the croton bug, but it is not a bug at all, it is a cockroach.
It is particularly numerous about water pipes, and, like the rest of the cockroaches, it hides in the daytime.