Sloane tells us the Indians of Jamaica drink the ashes of Cockroaches in physic: bruise and mix them with sugar and apply them to ulcers and cancers to suppurate; and are said also to give them to kill worms in children.[242] Dr. James, quoting Dioscorides, Lib. II. cap. 38, remarks: “The inside of the Blatta (_B. foetida_, Monf. 138), which is found in bake-houses, bruised or boiled in oil, and dropped into the ears, eases the pains thereof.”[243] It is most probable the insect now called Blatta is not at all meant by either of the above gentlemen. The Blatta of Dioscorides is quite likely the Blatta of Pliny, which has been with good reason conjectured to be the modern _Blaps mortisaga_--the common Church-yard beetle. In England, the hedge-hog, _Erinaceus Europæus_, from its fondness for insects and its nocturnal habits, is often kept domesticated in kitchens to destroy the Cockroaches with which they are infested; and the housekeepers of Jamaica, as we are informed by Sir Hans Sloane, for the same reasons and purpose, keep large spiders in their houses.[244] A species of monkey, _Simia jacchus_, and a species of lemur, _L. tardigradus_, are also made use of for destroying these insects, especially on board ships.[245] Mr. Neill, in the Magazine of Natural History, in his account of the above-mentioned species of monkey, says: “By chance we observed it devouring a large Cockroach, which it had caught running along the deck of the vessel; and, from this time to nearly the end of the voyage, a space of four or five weeks, it fed almost exclusively on these insects, and contributed most effectually to rid the vessel of them. It frequently ate a score of the largest kind, which are from two to two and a half inches long, and a very great number of the smaller ones, three or four times in the course of the day. It was quite amusing to see it at its meal. When he had got hold of one of the largest Cockroaches, he held it in his fore-paws, and then invariably nipped the head off first; he then pulled out the viscera and cast them aside, and devoured the rest of the body, rejecting the dry elytra and wings, and also the legs of the insect, which are covered with short stiff bristles. The small Cockroaches he ate without such fastidious nicety.”[246] The common Cockroach, or Black-beetle, as it is sometimes vulgarly called, the _Blatta orientalis_, is said originally to be a native of India, and introduced here, as well as in every other part of the civilized globe, through the medium of commerce. In England, another species, said to be a native of America, _Blatta Americana_, larger than the last, is now also becoming very common, especially in seaport towns where merchandise is stored.[247]