Ecological Notes on Insects. 63 



It was a striking illustration of the method by which nature 

 checks the undue multiplication of a species. As the host 

 becomes more abundant, the parasites having plenty of mate- 

 rial on which to feed, also reach maximum numbers, and the 

 host is nearly all destroyed. This accounts for the so-called 

 waves of abundance of many destructive species. 



A Beetle New to Cincinnati 



A new building in Covington, Ky., became suddenly over- 

 run with insects, pronounced by the health officer to be ''Sand 

 Fleas," which he said were breeding in a pile of sawdust that 

 was stored in a stable in the rear. August 26th I examined 

 the premises and found the supposed ''Sand Fleas" were 

 beetles belonging to the family Latridiid(€, Cartodere argiis, a 

 species not heretofore recorded from Cincinnati. I secured 

 thirty-six specimens, all taken in the bath tub. Several days 

 previous to this, hundreds were crawling over the walls and 

 beds. The family, who imagined themselves "all bitten up" 

 with this harmless little creature, went away for five days and 

 had sixty-five pounds of sulphur burned in their apartments 

 (to the great damage of interior decorations) in an efifort to 

 destroy the insects, but without avail. I found they were not 

 coming from the sawdust (which was of oak), nor could I find 

 any evidence of their breeding on the premises. But, in the 

 stock of a nearby drug store I found every package of herbs 

 and roots riddled with various beetles, mostly Sitodrepa pani- 

 cea, the drug beetle. In a package of "Solomon's Seal" (Poly- 

 gonatum biHoriim EH) I found this Cartodere breeding. Some 

 packages of "Witch Hazel" (Hamamelis) were a curious sight. 

 The outer envelope of paper was riddled with round holes of 

 two sizes, through which the beetles had emerged, and the 

 leaves within were eaten up. If those who store such vege- 

 table products would keep them in tight boxes, and evaporate 

 some bisulph. carbon occasionally to disinfect them, this dam- 

 age to the stock could be averted and unnecessary alarm 

 caused by a perfectly harmless species prevented. 



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