Ruach

“ Boiled wheat isn't bad for roach. Redworms are good for gudgeon. You find them in very old manure heaps. And you also find another kind of worm called a brandling, which is striped and smells like an earwig, and which is very good bait for perch. Ordinary earthworms are good for perch. You have to put them in moss to keep them fresh and lively. If you try to keep them in earth they die. Those brown flies you find on cowdung are pretty good for roach. You can take a chub on a cherry, so they say, and I've seen a roach taken with a currant out of a bun. ”

“ Jack may then be seen basking by the weeds.
When an exceptionally long continuance of dry weather forces all the fish to retire to the few acres of water that remain, then these voracious brutes do as they please with the other fish, and the roach especially suffer. Every two or three minutes the fry may be seen leaping into the air in the effort to escape, twenty or thirty at a time, and falling with a splash. The rush of hundreds and hundreds of roach causes a wave upon the surface which shows the course they take. ”

“ When thus spawning the roach are preyed on by rats—not the water-rat, but the house or drain rat. There are always a few of these about the lake, and they grow to an enormous size. They destroy the roach in great numbers. I have seen the sand strewn with dead fish opposite and leading up to their holes; for they catch and kill many more than they can eat, or even have time to carry away. I have shot at these great rascals when they have been swimming fifty yards from shore, and I strongly suspect them of visiting the nests of moorhens and other waterfowl with felonious purposes. ”

“ These roach literally swarm. At their spawning time that part of the lake the shore of which is stony is positively black with them. For a distance of some hundred and fifty yards the water for seven or eight feet from shore is simply a moving mass of roach. They crowd up against the stones, get underneath them and behind them, enter every little creek and interstice, and are so jammed by their own numbers that they may easily be caught by hand. In their anxiety to secure a place they crush against each other and splash up the water. ”

“ While the under-currents sweep ever slowly round, whirling leaf and dead black soddened twigs over the hollow, the upper streams are forced together unwillingly by the narrowing shores, and throw themselves with a bubbling rush onwards. Through the brown water, from under the stooping willow whose age bows it feebly, there shine now and again silvery streaks deep down as the roach play to and fro. There, too, come the perch; they are waiting for the insects falling off the willows and the bushes, and for the food brought down by the streams. ”

“ The slugs will desert everything else for Lettuces, and can be caught in numbers on and around them at night. So if you have a sluggy garden you must catch all the slugs you can, and also dust your seedlings with soot or wood-ash. The proper time to do this is after sunset, when the leaves are a little damp with dew. When the Lettuces begin to grow up, the slugs will leave them alone, and then the rain will wash away the slight dust of ash or soot from the outside leaves. ”

“ A roach firmly hooked ought never to be lost; it requires a dexterous hand to pilot a dace safely out of a rapid current—that is to say, a dace of two or three to the pound.
And the dace is deserving of respect because it will honestly take the fly. True, the roach does so too, occasionally; but the dace, any time between June and September, rises regularly. We used to get them in the Colne considerably over 1/2 lb. in weight, and an afternoon's perseverance and a little wading would, in favourable weather, put from twenty to thirty fish into your basket. ”

“ Roach is a handsome fish either in, or fresh out of the water; it inhabits many of our deep, still rivers; affecting, like the others of this genus, quiet waters; it is gregarious, keeping in large shoals; it has a small head, a leather mouth, which is round, and also small, with the teeth in the throat; large eyes, the circle of which resembles gold colour, and the iris red; the roach is deep, but thin, and the back elevated; the scales are large, and easily fall off; the fins are in general red, particularly whilst in perfection ”

“ Damp seasons sometimes bring the germ to the surface of the soil by the gradual elevation of the water level, or by causing inundations and the deposition of the bacillus on areas of pasture or forage that were previously free, or finally by bringing the earth worms to the surface and leading to the deposition in their casts of the bacillus brought from the infected graves or retentive subsoils. Dry seasons are, however, the anthrax seasons par excellence, as they dry up swamps, fens, ponds, lakes, basins, deltas and bottom lands, and render them available for pasture. ”

“ Both these pests, to which we would apply the distinctive terms of Uredo rubigo (red-rust) and Cecidomyia tritici (red-gum) , are exceedingly common in some seasons, and not unfrequently in the same crop. Good deep cultivation is the best remedy for the rust; but the treatment of the fly is a different matter. We would suggest the burning of smother-heaps on calm days, [186] just as the wheat is bursting into ear, as smoke is decidedly obnoxious to these small insects, which in some seasons may be seen in thousands about the bursting wheat. ”

“ The roach, of course, was not designed to be a household insect, and it lived out of doors for ages before man constructed dwellings, but it happens that its instincts and its form of body particularly adapt it to a lire in bouses. Its keen sense, its agility, its nocturnal habits, its omnivorous appetite, and its flattened shape are all qualities very fitting for success as a domestic pest. ”

“ The slugs, which commit their depredations in the night, creep under the leaves in the morning, and by turning up the leaves you come at the slugs, and crush them, or carry them away. But besides the immense daily labour attending this, the slug, in a field sowed with wheat, has a clod to creep under at every foot, and will not go five feet to get under a cabbage-leaf. ”

“ I now find the only plan to exterminate them is hand-picking in the morning when the dew is on the leaf; by doing so I have nearly got rid of them. I now find a small brown slug on the leaves, eating holes in them, this is evidently the offspring of the bug; I also pick them off, thus preventing the breeding for next year. My vines, from being mere bare poles, are now bringing forth buds and leaves, but of course no fruit this year. I should much wish to hear if any remedy has been found. I find the wild ones in the woods are also infested with the slug. ”

“ The proper species of rush for this purpose seems to be the juncus effusus, or common soft rush, which is to be found in most moist pastures, by the sides of streams, and under hedges. These rushes are in best condition in the height of summer; but may be gathered, so as to serve the purpose well, quite on to autumn. It would be needless to add that the largest and longest are best. Decayed labourers, women, and children, make it their business to procure and prepare them. ”

“ These seedlings run in swarms up the next blade of grass that lies in their way; and then the first thing that brushes that blade of grass, gathers off most of these vermin, which stick like burs upon anything that touches them. They void their eggs at the mouth.
Red worms lie only in old dead trees, and rotten logs; and without sitting down upon such, a man never meets with them, nor at any other season, but only in the midst of summer. A little warm water immediately brings off both seed ticks and red worms, though they lie ever so thick upon any part of the body. ”

“ It is sure to kill the Roaches that eat it, yet it acts so slowly that the poisoned Roaches linger on for several days before dying, during which time they carry to their nest and to their young such Powder as may adhere to their bodies. ”

“ Dombe Grande, and going across them once, I came to a small eminence that seemed to be all sulphur, and with a knife, a stick, and a few wedges that I cut, I managed to detach a solid block of sulphur of about thirty pounds in weight.
At Luache the trees and bushes are covered with a vast quantity of a curious leafless parasite. This is a creeper, which grows luxuriantly in great masses of long, thin, green strings or stems, sometimes completely covering the tree. These are full of tasteless mucilage when fresh, and are employed in decoction as an emulcent in coughs and colds. ”

“ Individual specimens in cages, jars, or wide-mouth vials with cotton stoppers to admit air. Several roaches in large cages with material for food and concealment.
Observations. What is the general color and the average size of cockroaches? During what time of the day are roaches most active? Where do they hide at other times? How do their shape and color aid concealment? Note any odd or striking colors or marks which might make them distinguishable to their mates. Is the roach a quick or a slow moving animal? How does it get about,—by running, jumping, walking, crawling, swimming, or flying? ”

“ The pests known as rust and smut in grain, grasses, and corn, the potato disease, and similar "wolves and tigers" of vegetation, are fungi. Those found upon wheat, rye, and some grasses are called ergot, and hold a high place in the materia medica, ecause of their active principle in certain diseases. ”

“ Now, towards the grassy margins they advance in straggling parties. See how they leap from the water to bend the loaded tops of the tall reeds. Woe be to the slug or snail that comes in their way. Some are probing the mud beneath, and waging war against the leech, frog, or lizard, that is within reach of their bills; while many of the older birds run into the woods, to fill their crops with beech-nuts and acorns, not disdaining to swallow also, should they come in their way, some of the wood-mice that, frightened by the approach of the foragers, hie towards their burrows. ”

“ When dew ‘falls’ it must tend to carry with it any particles of solid matter that may happen to be in the air from which it is deposited, and, in this way the spores of fungi, such as would cause the hay to mold, are put upon it. It can scarcely be questioned that many of the organisms deposited with the dew are likely to promote hurtful decomposition, especially in case the hay should remain or become damp, and the less of these organisms that infest the hay the better it will be. ”

“ The silver-coated roach, contemplating the dangling bait of the angler, is quite aware that for innumerable generations the members of his family have succumbed to the attraction of the pill of paste that conceals the barbed hook. ”

“ The wild grass has a trailing habit of growth; but uprightness and a longer culm is at once induced by the closer contact of drilling the seeds in thick rows.
d. The cultivation of Ægilops, and especially subjecting it to rich soil, produces the same kinds of fungoid attacks as are found with wheats under like circumstances, as thus:—Puccinia graminis (mildew) of the leaves and culms; Uredo rubigo (red rust) of the chaff-scales; Uredo caries (smut or bunt) of the grain. ”

“ Happily the learned and gentle doctor is a bacteriologist superb. An examination of the dead corn, which already emitted unpleasant odours, [Pg 209] revealed the presence of a new disease, the verde orin (green rust) . By his orders the field was burnt. Fortunately, the area was small and dissociated from the other fields of Señor Fernardey by wide zanzas. With the exception of two small pieces of the infected corn, carried away by Dr. Romanos and the foreign medical-cavalier, the pest was incinerated.'"
"The Foreign Medical-Cavalier," said Beale, "was Doctor van Heerden. ”

“ There should be neither cracks nor crevices in wall or floor, and no dark corners or out-of-the-way cupboards in which dust, food particles, and moisture can accumulate. Such conditions not only attract mice and roaches, but furnish favorable soil for the development of moulds and fungi which by their growth affect food deleteriously. ”

“ The growth of the plant proceeds,—all the soft parts of the grub are progressively consumed or appropriated by the plant, which, after thus distending the integument of its prey, bursts forth at the weakest point, usually that piece of fine skin which connects the head and body of the grub; the plant, now requiring light, shoots out of the earth, develops its spores which are dispersed in the air and fall to the soil, prepared to take advantage of any similar nidus into which they may be accidentally introduced. ”

“ Wheat, barley, and oats are then sown, and the seed thus fertilised by the slime produces a crop double that produced by the land in the vicinity. After the harvest is collected, the water is permitted to return to its former bed, and carp, tench, and [Pg 562] roach are then thrown into it. Some of these ponds will support 100,000 of carp, and 100 pounds of little tench and roach. In the course of two years these carp, which weighed only one ounce and a-half, will have attained the size of two pounds and a half. ”

“ During the three summers then of their existence in the grub state, these insects do immense injury, burrowing between the turf and the soil, and devouring the roots of grass and other plants; so that the turf may easily be rolled off, as if cut by a turfing spade, while the soil underneath for an inch or more is turned into soft mould like the bed of a garden. ”