1912] Life History of Trogoderma Tarsale Son 
A large number of females, immediately after the completion 
of metamorphosis, were placed in separate vials and not allowed 
to befertilized. In asingle case only were there any eggs laid and 
those were only three in number. The life of non-pregnant 
females is, in general, somewhat prolonged. It was also found 
that extremely small female specimens are sterile. 
7. FEEDING. 
The wide variety of substances upon which this species can 
subsist has already been mentioned when speaking of their 
ravages, but it might be well to give the relative value of some 
of the substances as food for the larve. The pests seem to 
thrive best on dried insects and fish, and although they can live 
on wool and feathers their growth is decidedly slow when they 
feed on these materials. A number of specimens immediately 
after hatching were placed on a feather diet and, although they 
are now over two years old, they have grown but very little, 
When they were a year old they were very little larger than the 
newly hatched individuals, and at the end of the second year of 
life, they reached a meager size equal to that which specimens 
fed on insects ordinarily attain in two weeks. Their develop- 
ment on wool is even slower. 
F. H. Chittenden (1897) says, “One jar of flaxseed from the 
museum exhibit of the department is infested chiefly by this 
common museum pest. Many of the larve may be seen 
through the glass, and large patches of their yellowish-brown 
gnawings and excrement show where they have been at work. 
In castor beans a few larve were present. 
‘That these species of Trogoderma can subsist on a vegetable 
diet is as positive as it is surprising. No other Coleoptera to 
my knowledge live on oil seeds, and I had nearly arrived at the 
conclusion that as this form of matter was the nearest approach 
to animal food available, that these insects could only thrive on 
such vegetable substances as contain a considerable portion of 
oleaginous matter. Judge of my astonishment, then, when a 
few weeks after the discovery of the Trogoderma living in oil 
seeds, Dr. Howard brought me a box nearly full of cayenne 
pepper in which were several Trogoderma larve. The most 
careful search failed to show even fragments of that well-known 
red pepper pest, Sitodrepa panicea, or of any other insect than 
the dermestid. Subsequently the adult was reared and proved 
to be Trogoderma tarsale. 
