136 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



case of necessity it will eat fur and hair. To woollen cloths or stuffs it 

 often does incredible injury, especially if they are not kept dry and well 

 aired. ^ Of the devastation committed by Galleria melloneUa in our bee- 

 hives I have before given you an account : to this I must here add, that if 

 it cannot come at wax, it will content itself with woollen cloth, leather, or 

 even paper.'^ ]\Ir. Curtis found the grub of a beetle (Ptinus fur) in an 

 old coat, which it devoured, fnaking holes and channels in it ; and another 

 insect of the same order (^Attagcnus pcllio), Linne tells us, will sometimes 

 entirely strip a fur garment of its hair.^ A small beetle of the Capricorn 

 tribe (Cal/idium pj/gmcBum Fabr.) I have good reason to believe devours 

 leather, since I have found it abundant in "old shoes.* 



Next to our garments, our houses and buildings, which shelter us and 

 our property from the inclemency and injuries of the atmosphere, are of 

 consequence to us : yet these, solid and substantial as they appear, are 

 not secure from the attack of insects; and even our furnfture often suffers 

 from them. A great part of our comfort within doors depends u[)on our 

 apartments being kept clean and neat. Spiders by their webs, which they 

 suspend in every angle, and flies by their excrements, which they scatter 

 indiscriminately upon every tiling, interfere with this comfort, and add 

 much to the business of our servants. Even ants will sometimes plant 

 their colonies in our kitchens (I have known the horse-ant, Formica rufa, 

 do this), and are not easily expelled.* Those of Sierra Leone, as I was 

 once informed by the learned Professor Afzelius, make their way by millions 

 through the houses. They resolutely pursue a straight course ; and neither 

 buildings nor rivers, even "though myriads perish in the attempt, can divert 

 them from it. Several tribes of insects seek their food in the timber em- 

 ployed in our houses, buildings, gates or fences, or made up into furniture. 

 The large oaken beams, which, according to the*oId mode of building, 

 support the joists of the upper floors in the houses at Brussels, as I had 

 an opportunity of observing when there in 1836, have often their extre- 

 mities so eaten away like a honeycomb by the larvae of a beetle (Aiwbiuni 

 tesscllatum, some of the dead perfect insects of which I found in their 

 holes), that it is necessary to replace them at great expense to prevent the 

 floors coming down ; and I subsequently saw beams similarly attacked 

 which had been removed from houses at Antwerp.^ M. Audouin has laid 

 before the French Academy an account of the injury done by Termes luci- 

 fugus to the wood-work of buildings at Rochefort and La Rochelle ; and 

 of that of the new galleries of the Museum of Natural History at Paris by 

 the larva of a small beetle {Lrjctus canaliculatus Fab.), which feeds on the 



1 Reaum. iii. 42. 2 Jbid. 257. 5 Amcen. Acad. 34G. 



* Hides and skins are attacked by several species of Dcnnestes, which are 

 sometimes so injurious in the hirge skin warehouses of London, that the mer- 

 chants offered 20,000/. as a reward for an available remedy. (Westwood, Mod. 

 C/dss. Ins. i. p. 158.) 



* Within the last few j^ears, a^very minute yellow ant (Mi/rmka domestica 

 Shuckard) has become a great pest in many houses in Brighton, London, and 

 Liverpool ; in some cases to so great an extent as to cause the occupants to leave 

 them. Dr. Bostock was obliged to replace the floor of his kitchen, under which 

 they swarmed in incredible numbers, Ijy a new one resting on tiles imbedded in 

 cement. ( Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. ii. 60. proc. li. Hi. ; Shuckard in Man. Nat. Hist, 

 MS. ii. 626.) 



^ Spence in Trans, Ent. Soc. Lond. li. proc. x. 



