BRACHYTARSUS VARIEGATUS. I 39 



Ordinarily found in meal and rice, but it attacks even collections of in- 

 sects (Lacordaire, Coleopt., v, p. 323). 



Other Notices of the Insect 



Mr. W. E. Saunders also makes mention of its carnivorous habits in 

 Canada. He states that it infests patent food and similar substances, 

 and that it eats the dead bodies of other beetles. (Insects Injurious to 

 Drugs — Canadian Entomologist, May, 1883, xv, p. 82.) 



Dr. Horn, in his Revision of the Tenebrionidae of America, North of 

 Mexico, Trans. Amer. Pliilosopli. Soc, 187 1, xiv, N. S., p. 365, merely 

 groups it with its only known congener in our fauna, C. madens (Charp.), 

 remarking of it that the former species is ferruginous, the latter black, 

 and that in length, they vary from .16 to .20 inch, C. madens being the 

 larger. Both are found abundantly wherever meal or grain is stored. 



It is named in the list of Drs. LeConte, Horn, and Leidy, of " In- 

 sects Introduced by the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia," as 

 occurring in mouldy specimens of straw goods from Italy. 



I find no other notice of the species by our American authors. 



The following interesting statement of its infesting a cargo of pea- 

 nuts was communicated to the Entomological Society of London, by 

 Mr. Albert Muller: 



In the summer of 1863, a cargo of ground-nuts {Arachis liypogcea) 

 arrived in the port of London, direct from Sierra Leone. On arrival 

 the usual samples were drawn, when it turned out that the husks were 

 riddled by countless holes, while the kernels were half eaten up by 

 myriads of larvae and imagines of Triboliuni ferrngineum. So com- 

 pletely had they done their noisome work, that in the numerous sam- 

 ples examined scarcely an intact kernel could be found. If a nut was 

 opened the whole interior was often found to be converted into a living 

 conglomerate of larvae, pupae and imagines of Tribolinm, accompanied 

 by the larv» and perfect insects of a Rhizophagus preying on the former, 

 the whole mass being wrapped up in a layer of cast-skins and excre- 

 ment. 



Brachytarsus variegatus (Say). 



(Ord. Coleoptera: Earn. Axthribid.^-:.) 



Say: in Joiirn. Acad. Nat. Sci. Pliila., v, pt. ii, 1827, p. 251 (Anthribus); Com- 

 plete Works, Ed. Lee, 1869, ii, p. 314. 



Walsh: in Journ. 111. St. Agricul. Soc, 1862, pp. 8-12. figs.; in Proceed. Bost. 

 Soc. Nat. Hist., 1864, ix, p. 309. 



LeConte: in Proceed. Amer. Pliilosopb. Soc, xv, 1876, p. 406. 



