The Bulletin. 



69 



The acid and water should be mixed together in an earthenware 

 jar of about 5 gallons capacity. Ordinarily, not more than about 10 

 ounces of potassium cyanide to be used in one jar. If a larger amount 

 than this is required to fumigate the room, it should be separated into 

 10-ounce or smaller lots. Potassium cyanide, after being weighed 

 out, should be placed in thin cloth sacks. A skilled person in fumigat- 

 ing a large room can drop these sacks into the jars one after another 

 and escape from the room without injurious results, but as hydro- 

 cyanic acid gas is one of the most deadly poisons known, it should 

 be used with great care. A better plan would be to have the sacks 

 suspended over the jars by means of cords working through screw- 

 eyes in such a way that the sacks can be lowered into the jars from the 

 outside. The building should then be left closed about 12 hours and 

 then thoroughly aired before any one attempts to enter the building. 

 The building should be made as near air-tight as possible before 

 fumigation is commenced, otherwise enough of the gas may escape 

 into the outside air to be injurious. 



Fig. 56.— Drug Store Beetle, (a) Larva; (b) pupa ; (c) adult ; (d) adult, side 



view (all enlarged). 



(After Chittenden, Bureau of Entomology, U. S. Dept. Agri., Bui. No. 4, n. s.) 



The Drug Store Beetle. 1 

 (Order Golcoptera.) 



This insect belongs to the same group as the Cigarette Beetle, 

 which it resembles closely. Like the Cigarette Beetle, it is also 

 a very general feeder on all sorts of dried stored products. It does 

 not seem to be especially fond of tobacco, but has been observed by 

 the writer in Raleigh injuring cigars by eating out the filler, though 

 it was a much more serious pest of other stored products in the same 

 store. This insect resembles very closely the Cigarette Beetle. The 

 more important differences can be noticed at a glance by comparing 

 Figs. 54 and 56. 



1 8itodrepa- pan'uea. 



