284 



HOUSEHOLD INSECTS 



correspondent writes to Lintner : " A few days since a 

 neighbor sent us a pan of wheat flour with the request that 

 we examine it. Setting the pan in a quiet place for twenty- 

 four hours, the surface presented a strange appearance — 

 only comparable to that of an ant hill — as though each 



grain was being separately 

 moved. Slightly disturbing 

 this surface and examining 

 through a common sun-glass 

 of low power it was found to 

 be full of very minute life." 

 Sugars, especially raw sugars, 

 are often found infested to 

 the same extent. Smoked 

 meats, especially hams and 

 shoulders, sometimes swarm 

 with mites to such an extent 

 as to resist all efforts at con- 

 trol and to render them totally 

 unfit for sale. Packing houses 

 and feed mills are occasionally 

 very much troubled with 

 them. 



It is interesting to know 

 that these mites are some- 

 times checked and practically 

 destroyed by some enemies of their own kind, one or 

 more species of predaceous mites. The predaceous 

 species seem to feed entirely upon their more trouble- 

 some brethren and eventually reduce the latter very 

 greatly in numbers. Howard relates an interesting 

 example of the work of these predaceous mites that 



Fig. 93. — A cheese mite (T. 

 farinoe). (X 80.) 



