Four photographs of what look like moonscapes lean against the wall, propped on little black "feet" resembling roach traps.

Ms. Gotbaum watched as her staff laid out a punch bowl from 1824 and a ceramic roach trap from 1861.

The roach trap is in fact one of many objects in a reopening exhibition, set for May, that will explore ordinary life in the American past.

The company hopes to receive approval for the roach traps early next year from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Instead of finding a female, however, the moth ends up in a sticky box not unlike a roach trap, and the courtship comes to a sudden stop.

They didn't need to set a roach trap for the adventurous soul who found this hidden place.

They would not fall for any roach trap!

To her this means that the reopening exhibition in May will consist of "fascinating objects never considered treasures in the past, like a 19th-century ceramic roach trap."

Now, I see his invention as the mortal gift it is, dreamed up in a roach trap by an office worker, and all the more precious for that.

Biosys, which makes nematode farm and garden products, plans to announce today that it has received a patent for its roach trap.