Eleventh Report op the State Entomologist 173 



Mrs. Pratt suggested that their fondness for these flowers might be 

 utilized for collecting and gathering them for subsequent killing by crush- 

 ing or scalding; and that if the plants were cultivated in gardens, and 

 allowed to blossom, the beetles would be drawn from our houses to feed 

 upon them. 



That they would serve as attractive food-plants for drawing the beetles 

 is very probable, and similar suggestions for the growing of peonies, 

 spiraeas and other blossoms known to be frequented by them, have pre- 

 viously been made, but it is very doubtful if it would aid in lessening the 

 ravages of their larvae within doors. The general opinion is that the first 

 business of the mature beetle, after mating, is the deposit of eggs in 

 places where its young may find their proper food, beneath carpets and 

 other woolens, and then to make their exit through the windows to seek 

 the moderate amount of food that the mature insect requires during its 

 brief existence. No eggs have been found in the ovaries of such as have 

 been examined which had been taken while feeding on flowers, apparently 

 indicating that killing them at this time would serve no useful purpose. 

 It is recalled, however, that the beetles are frequently found in copulation 

 on flowers in our parks, and from this it would seem possible that the 

 eggs were still to be deposited in houses to be entered for the purpose. 



In this possibility, it would be well if the females taken in copula, on 

 flowers late in June, could be examined for eggs that they might contain at 

 this time. Possibly the eggs of Anthrenus are not developed till late in 

 life, and that an amount of food is needed for their development, as 

 Prof. Smith has shown to be the case in the rose-bug, Macrodactylus 

 subspijwsus, where the female feeds for from ten to fourteen days before 

 the commencement of her oviposition. (See Twelfth Annual Report of 

 the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station for the year i8gi, 



page 355-) 



Prof. H. M. Seeley, of Middlebury College, Vt., has also sent me 

 Anthrenus scropJmlaricc taken from the blossoms of the garden rhubarb, 

 under date of June i, 1887. 



As everything in relation to the destructive habits of this household 

 pest is of interest, it may be mentioned here that statements have been 

 received of this beetle having eaten holes into lace window curtains. 

 These have seldom been credited, but in one instance it was not doubted, 

 where it appeared that the hole had been made for the purpose of reach- 

 ing the body of a cut-worm moth, Agrotis sp., which lay within its folds. 

 The Anthreni are very fond of other dead insects, and our collections are 

 not infrequently visited by A. scrophulariLe. 



