might admire them.

How they can run!

All the cockroaches run very fast, so that it is hard to catch one. And
they are hard and smooth, too, which makes it yet more difficult to
catch them. They are well made to escape their enemies, and they are so
flat they can hide in cracks or almost anywhere.

No, May, they do not fly very much. You see this one has short wings. It
is a male cockroach. The female of this species of cockroach has no
wings at all, only little hints of wings, as it were.

Such little useless wings we call "rudimentary" wings.

John says he thinks that is a long word for short wings.

Yes, but it is not a hard word,--ru-di-ment-ary, see if you can remember
it.

The croton bugs have longer wings and they sometimes fly.

If you were to spread out the wings of a cockroach, you would find it
had four.

What is that, May? You wouldn't spread them out for anything?

Yet wise men have been very much interested in our poor, ill-smelling
old cockroaches, and have studied carefully all about them.