Ninth Report of the State Entomologtsi 305 



tion will be more convenient and productive of better results if the 

 carpet is left unnailed. 



Possibility of Freeing Infested Houses from the Insect. 



That freeing a house from the presence of this exceedingly annoying 

 and destructive pest, is not a hopeless task, will appear from the account 

 given by a correspondent of her successful campaign against it. The 

 prefatory reference to her first acquaintance with the insect is of suffi- 

 cient interest to quote, particularly as it gives an earlier time by several 

 years for its observation in this country than had been previously 

 recorded.* 



How a House was Freed from A. scrophulariae. 



In November, 1883, Mary E. Clark, of New York city, wrote to me 

 as follows: 



It may not be uninteresting to you if I add my mite to the information 

 already gained in regard to these insects. I first heard of them about 

 twenty years ago at which time they were quite domesticated in parts 

 of Montgomery county, Penn. The people called them " woolly- 

 heads," and one who lived there described them to me as looking like a 

 little piece of black wool. A few years later — I think about 1868 — 

 when visiting a friend on Long Island, I saw quite a numl)er of them: 

 they had made their appearance only a shoit time previoush^ and before 

 their prei^ence was known had made great havoc with the carpets. 



My own experience with them began last year. We moved to oui- 

 present abode in April, and it was. not until every carpet had been put 

 down and the house settled that I was awai'e that we had such unwel- 

 come guests. I was not long in observing their habit of running into 

 any crack or crevice that presented itself, and also running along the 

 joints of the floors, and our warfare against them Avas directed toward 

 these joints. In the closets we stopped u}) every nook on the walls; 

 every crevice under the base boards, and filled up the joints of the floor; 

 then we laid down oil-cloth, and kept a plentiful supply of camphor in 

 the closets. I am happy to say that we have had no trouble with them 

 since so doing. 



Fortunately, we had i)ut paper under all the carjjets, so we felt that 

 they were in a measure, at least, protected, but I found them continually, 

 just under the edges of the carpet. As far as possible, we filled up the 

 crevices under the baseboards and I used benzine very plentifully all 

 the summer, saturating the borders of the carpets every two Aveeks 



* Examples of it, labeled Anthrenus lepidus, in the cabinet of Dr. LeConte had been received 

 from Oregon ■' in 1871 or 1872." Dr. Hagen had heard of its operations in Buffalo, N. Y., in 1672. 

 The first notice of its injuries was seen by me in 1874, and in I87G, examples were taken in my 

 house at Schenectady, N. Y., and the new household pest brought to public notice. Its earlier 

 observation in Pennsylvania accords with the statement made to me some time ago by a gentle- 

 man living in that State (the time and place have escaped my memory), that he had reason to 

 believe that he was chargeable with its introduction into this country in a trunk which was found 

 to contain them on his return from Europe. 



1893 39 



