562 



BIOLOGY AND HUMAN LIFE 



may become a serious menace, in the course of their wanderings, 

 since they may carry disease germs to the food. 



Ants have been very destructive not only to food materials 

 but also to furniture, clothing, wooden utensils, and even 

 wooden houses (Fig. 230). The Argentine ant was introduced 



Fig. 229. The clothes moth {Tinea pellionella) 



It is the larva of this animal that eats woolen and fur material. The eggs are laid on 



the material and hatch out when the temperature is sufficiently warm. It is for this 



reason that we rarely iind the animals in the winter, and it is for this reason that furs 



and woolen rugs etc. are placed in cold storage during the summer months. (X 8) 



into this country in the early nineties at New Orleans, and has 

 been more destructive in southern parts of the country than any 

 of our native species. 



Ants and cockroaches are a nuisance about a house and 

 can be exterminated, once they get in, only through careful at- 

 tention to their nests, cracks in the walls, etc., and to the avail- 

 ability of material that will attract them. Corrosive sublimate 

 is used to poison them, solutions being sprinkled into the cracks. 

 The cockroaches can be driven out by systematically sprinkling 

 borax about the kitchen. 



