228 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



to flour alone, for it will eat any thing made of that arti- 

 cle, such as bread, cakes, and the like. Old flour is also 

 very apt to be infested by a mite {Acarus Farincv) ^. 

 In long voyages the biscuit sometimes so swarms with 

 the weevil and another beetle {Dcrmcstcs j^ciniceus^ L.) 

 that they are swallowed with every mouthful ; and even 

 the ground peas so abound with these little vermin, that 

 a spoonful of soup cannot be taken free from them ''. 

 Bread is also devoured by Trogosila caraboides, a larger 

 beetle before alluded to'^. 



Every one is aware that our animal food suffers still 

 more than our farinaceous from insects; but perhaps you 

 would not expect that our hams, bacon, and dried meats 

 should have their peculiar beetle. Yet so it is ; and this 

 beetle, {Dennestcs lardai-ius,) when a grub, sometimes 

 commits gi'eat devastation in them ; as does that of 

 another described by De Geer under the name of Tcrie- 

 hrio lardaj-ius^. How much our fresh meat of all kinds, 

 our poultry and fish, are exposed to the flesh-fly, whose 

 maggots will turn us disgusted from our tables, if w'e do 

 not carefully guard these articles from being blown by 

 them, you well know; — and assailants more violent, hor- 

 nets, wasps, and the great rove-beetle, [Creophihis max- 



" Amcen. Acad. iii. 345. 



'' Sparrman, i. 103. Tliis insect, by Swedish entomologists, is sup- 

 posed to be a species of Anohium, F,, {Ptinns, L.,) but the specimen 

 preserved in the Linnean cabinet is Silpha rdsca of Mr. Marsliam 

 {Cacldnla pcctornlis, Meg.). A small beetle of the first fannly of Crt/- 

 piop/iagtis of Major Gyllenhal swarms often in the ship biscuit, and 

 may probably be the insect Sparrman here complains of under the 

 name of Dcnncstes punicens. 



' See above, p. 17^. 



■^ De Geer, v. 4G. This insect appears nearly related to Mr. Mar- 

 sham's Corticaria pulla (E. B. i, 11. 14. Latridius porcatus, Ilerbst), 

 if it be not the same insect. 



