Category: Humour
_The Governess:_ And, perhaps, Mabel, as they are not black and as they are not beetles, you will in future call them cockroaches. _Mabel:_ Certainly, Miss Smith, although they are not cocks and they are not roaches. (_Punch._)
_The Governess:_ And, perhaps, Mabel, as they are not black and as they are not beetles, you will in future call them cockroaches. _Mabel:_ Certainly, Miss Smith, although they...
2. PART IICockroaches do a very considerable amount of damage by consuming food-supplies. But they do not stop at food-supplies: woollen clothing, newspapers—not a really great loss—black...
3. CHAPTER IIIBritain wants many materials in this war, and as long as our back door is open we are getting them. Petrol, rubber, zinc, copper, molybdenum, vanadium, thorium, nickel, saltpetr...
4. PART IThere is no zoological distinction between a mosquito, a gnat, or a midge. But, as a matter of convenience, we might confine the term ‘gnat’ to the genus _Culex_, the term ‘mosq...
5. PART IIThe female imago hibernates. Finsch made observations and found it hibernating on the frozen Siberian tundras, beneath the moss and snow. Sterling found them in North America wh...
6. PART IIIIt is now pretty well accepted that the auditory organs of the mosquito are situated in the antennae. Sixty years ago Johnston of Baltimore was investigating the hearing-apparat...
7. PART IVThe eggs of the mosquito are deposited in fresh water, and at first they are white, but they very rapidly darken until they assume a polished black appearance. Each egg is 0·72...
8. PART VIn the young larva of _Anopheles_ the head is broader and deeper than the thorax, but in the older larvae the segments that succeed the head have at least twice its diameter. It...
9. ill. Now, after filling up all pools and cleaning the jungle, no singleofficer has suffered from malaria since July 1904, and the number of cases amongst the children fell from 34·8 to 0·77 per cent. The only melancholy feature about this wonderful...
10. CHAPTER IXLike other branches of human activity disease has its romantic and its unromantic side. Nobody can regard mumps or measles as romantic. On the other hand, yellow fever calls up...
11. CHAPTER XThe first things to notice about the biscuit-‘weevil,’ so familiar to readers of Marryat’s novels, is that it is not a weevil at all, and that it attacks a great many other come...
12. CHAPTER XIThe extension of the War to Turkey and Asia Minor has drawn attention to the existence of certain insects whose larvae exercise a very deleterious effect on valuable food-suppli...
13. CHAPTER XIIFly! Thy brisk unmeaning buzz Would have roused the man of Uz; And, besides thy buzzing, I Fancy thou’rt a stinging-fly. Fly—who’rt peering, I am certain, At me now from yonder...
14. CHAPTER XIIIThe overwhelming majority of rats fall under two species: (i) _Mus rattus_, the black rat, and (ii) _Mus decumanus_, the brown rat. The original home of both species is, accordi...
15. CHAPTER XIVWee, sleekit, cowrin’, tim’rous beastie, Oh, what a panic’s in thy breastie! Thou needna start awa’ sae hasty, Wi’ bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee, Wi’ m...