60 



LARDER BEETLE. 



Larder Beetle; Bacon Beetle. Dermestes lardarius, Linn. 



1 

 Dermestes lakdarius. — Beetle and larva, magnified. 



The Bacon or Larder Beetle, -wbicb takes its popular names, re- 

 spectively, from one of its special haunts, and also one of the many 

 substances which it chooses for its attack, is one of the infestations 

 regarding which there is a steady moderate amount of inquiry, but yet 

 with little or no addition to the information which we are already 

 possessed of regarding the destructive habits of the pest, or as to 

 means of prevention. The accounts confirm what we already know of 

 the waste and annoyance caused by this beetle and its maggots as a 

 house or store pest, and suggest that it would be of use for more 

 information of its habits to be generally accessible. 



The beetle is of the shape figured above from life (magnified), that 

 is, oval, from a quarter to a third of an inch in length, black in colour, 

 excepting a pale yellowish or brownish yellow band across the lower 

 half of the wing-cases, covered with a thick grey down, nnd usually 

 bearing three black spots (on each of the wing-cases). Beneath them 

 I find a pair of strongly veined wings. The head is bent down ; the 

 antenna? (horns) short, with the clubs at their extremities 3-articulate. 

 The under side of the body slightly clothed with ashy-down or scales. 



The larva, or maggot, is about half an inch or rather more in 

 length, dark brown (or broadly striped across with dark brown) above, 

 and thickly covered with brown hairs ; under surface white. 



The infestation has been known in Europe for more than two 

 centuries, and is now cosmopoHtan in distribution ; it is found both in 

 Asia and America ; and in the United States, where it is as great a 

 pest or even greater than with us, it is now considered that it may be 

 possibly native as well as introduced. 



The main points of the life-history, taken from German observa- 

 tion,* are that the beetles develop from the chrysalis state in October 



• See ' Praktische Insektenkunde,' by Dr. E. L. Taschenberg, pt. ii. p. 24. 



