REPORT OF STATE ENTOMOLOGIST, 1898 217 
known to cause the wall paper in a house to scale off by feeding on the 
starch paste. In museums they are frequently troublesome on account of 
their habit of eating away the surface of the labels. In one case coming 
under my observation at Fort Plain, N. Y., the labels were so badly 
eaten as to be illegible in a number of instances, and in one or two 
cases the fragments dropped from the blocks to which they had been 
tacked. These insects even worked their way into wooden boxes 
containing microscopic preparations and attacked the labels gummed 
on the glass slips. Another instance of their destructiveness is shown 
in the accompanying reproduction from a photograph of a senate bill, 
which had been undisturbed in the office for about 16 years 
(fig. 15). It is most probable the work of Lepisma domestica, 
as it has subsequently been taken in the office. Both of these species 





STATE OF NEW YORK. _ 
Nod or ee 
teak 2 

S-F5 a gts ee Sega 
© | pec Fhe 
ANS ENA ae ue 
Ry ree Fs A ae 


Fig. 15 — Work of Lepisma (original). 
are small and shun the light, running very rapidly to a place of conceal- 
ment on the slightest alarm. ‘They are slender, silvery gray, wingless 
insects, belonging to the lowest order, Thysanura. Their long, fragile 
antennae and delicate anal filaments render it very difficult to capture a 
specimen unbroken. Lefisma domestica is represented very much en- 
