1912]. Life History of Trogoderma Tarsale 379 
During the period of sexual excitement which follows a day or 
two later the insects are still negative and the females remain 
decidedly so ‘until their eggs are safely deposited. Several 
hours later, or the day following the ege- -laying, they gradually 
become indifferent to light and’ finally a complete reversal of 
their former reaction follows. The males, too, become posi- 
tively phototactic during the last days of their lives. Although 
ordinarily the adults remain in the cabinets where they had 
developed till death occurs, we find some occasionally on the 
windows in the rooms where they make their abode. A number 
of such specimens were at different times collected and dissected, 
but in no case were there any eggs found within the bodies of 
the females. This also indicates that the females lay their 
eggs before they reverse their reaction to light and desert their 
places of concealment, and apparently their destruction as a 
museum pest at this late stage is futile. 
The larve in all stages of development feign death when 
disturbed. The period of death feigning, however, is very 
short, lasting only half a minute at the most and usually only 
a few seconds. If the disturbance is continued they no longer 
respond in the same manner. The adult insects when dis- 
turbed fold up their legs and antenne and feign death for a 
much longer time than do the larve; the average feint lasting 
only about half a minute; but specimens frequently feign death 
as long as fifteen minutes. This reaction in the adults, too, 
wears out if the disturbance is repeated. 
10. RESULTS OF EXPERIMENTS ON STARVATION OF THE LARVA. 
_ The most interesting feature of the studies on T. tarsale is the 
extremely long period of time that the larve can go without 
food. Even the newly hatched specimens which never had a 
morsel of food to eat live as long as four months. Many of the 
older larve, which are being kept in the laboratory, have not 
had a particle of food during the surprisingly long period of a 
whole year and are still alive and active; and at this stage of the 
experiment it is not possible to say just how long the larve in 
various stages of development are able to exist under such 
conditions. 
A large number of larve of at least eight representative 
stages, varying from newly hatched to full grown individuals 
were collected and placed in covered glass vials, without any 
foodiwhatsoever, for the purpose of starvation. 
