44 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 
different uniforms; some looking like martial officers, or- 
namented with one or two golden epaulets; others, like 
chamberlains of a despotic sovereign, ornamented with a 
golden royal chamber-key on their side ; others in ordinary 
working dress, and altogether quite respectable and corpu- 
lent in their appearance, because they, like the persons 
they so much resemble, live also on the fat of their fellow- 
creatures. © 
Now the greatest part of these Beetles, as I have already 
mentioned, are very beneficial to man, by consuming car- 
rion and all decomposing substances. But there is one 
particular genus of them against which the naturalist al- 
ways makes war, notwithstanding it is not larger than two- 
thirds of a line. This small insect is called the Cabinet Bee- 
tle (Anthrenus musworum), and is of a dark-brown color, covy- 
ered with gray scales forming three stripes across the wing- 
covers. If these scales are wiped off the insect appears 
black, and loses its specific character. 
In spite of its diminutive size this insect is a great plague 
to all cabinets of Natural History, and if they are not well 
protected against it, they will all be destroyed by it in a 
short time; for its larve are able to make holes through the 
hardest boards, and will make their way unperceived into 
any case whatever. They eat the skins of stuffed animals, 
and particularly the internal parts of insects, of which they 
leave nothing but the wings. Thus the most precious and 
costly collections will be entirely destroyed by it, if the ne- 
cessary precautions are not taken to prevent it. 
The late General Andrew Jackson, President of the 
United States, presented me in 1834 with two large boxes 
of splendid South American Beetles and Butterflies, but, 
much to my regret, on opening them I found the largest 
and handsomest specimens destroyed by this little enemy 
of naturalists. I succeeded, however, in saving a large 
number of them from entire destruction by putting them 
