SEEING BY AID OF THE LEXS. 



95 



fig l. 



CIGAR WITH TOBACCO LARVAE 



IMBEDDED IN FURROWS OF THE 



TOBACCO 



round, deep hole not larger than the 

 body of the insect, and then deposit 

 the ova inside the tunneled holes when 

 after a certain length of time the larvae 

 seen on the plug cut tobacco and the 

 cigar specimen develop. This process 

 has been witnessed off and on years 

 ago and again lately by the writer when 

 the furrows of these beetles had been 

 exposed in tobacco and some drugs, 

 either of which they feed upon but 

 with preference for the tobacco and 

 usually for the best brand of tobacco 

 goods. 



These minute insects are occasion- 

 ally and numerously found in dried 



vegetable drugs and household goods. 

 But lately my friend, the druggist, 

 happened to find an old package of 

 orris root powder in which numerous 

 round and oval-shaped bodies of gran- 

 ular appearance were present which 

 after mounting and microscopical ex- 

 amination I found to be composed 

 mainly of the cocoons of the minute 

 tobacco beetle and I prepared a photo- 

 graph of them magnified about three 

 and one half times (Fig. 4). Nearly 

 all of these beetle cocoons were in the 

 breeding cycle ; i. e., most of them 



after 



opening 



the 



minute globular 



FIG 2. 



(1) PLUG TOBACCO INFESTED WITH 



THE TOBACCO LARVAE 



(Magnified very slightly.) 



(2) TOBACCO AND DRUG STORE 



BEETLES WITH LARVAE 



(3) DRUG STORE BEETLES AT NORMAL 



SIZE 



