100 [Assembly, 



A Meal Insect — Lcemophlceus alternans. 



A barrel of "Arlington wheat meal " was found (in Massachusetts) 

 to be infested — to w4iat extent not stated — with a small insect, 

 which, as near as could be determined from the examples received, 

 was Lcemophlceus alternans Er. 



Upon inquiry of the manufacturers of the meal, reply was made 

 that the insect was entirely new to them, and no complaint of its 

 occurrence had previously been received by them. 



With our limited knowledge of these insects, we are unable to 

 say when they were introduced in the meal or what drew them 

 thither. Most of the members of the family of Cucujidce, to 

 which Lcemophlceus belongs, are carnivorous in their larval stage. 

 Many live under the bark of trees where they subsist upon other 

 insects, acari, etc. The Lcemophlceus larva may possibly have been 

 present in the meal for feeding upon the flour-raite, 2yroglyphus 

 siro (Linn.), with which the meal may have also been infested with- 

 out their minute forms having been noticed. Perhaps the mature 

 beetle may feed on meal, but of this nothing as yet is known. 



It will be difficult to name a remedy for this beetle when infest- 

 ing meal. It is so small — less than one-twellth of an inch in 

 length — that it could not be removed through sifting. The 

 experiment miglit be made of placing in the flour a small package 

 of gum camphor, naphthaline or some other substance of strong 

 odor that may prove disagreeable to the insects, and thus drive 

 them out. If but a few are present, and the natural prejudice 

 against eating insect-food could be overcome, no harm would follow 

 if some of them should happen to be served up with the cooked 

 meal. 



A Gkass-bubrowing Beetle. 



Cebrio hicolor (Fabr.). 



A beetle sent from Nashville, Tenn., was accompanied with the 

 statement that in a grass-plat, which had been sodded late in the 

 preceding year, whenever it rained, this insect threw up small 

 mounds of earth, and had filled the ground with holes of about 

 one-fourth of an inch in diameter. A remedy for its defacement 

 of the grass-plat was desired. 



