BREAD OR PASTE BEETLE. 107 



with which I am acquainted), it is said : — " In Europe it is still known 

 as the Bread Beetle, but its chief injuries are to druggists' supplies, 

 hence the name of Drug Store Beetle. Its depredations do not stop 

 here, however, for it invades alike stores of all kinds, mills, granaries, 

 and tobacco warehouses. Of household wares its preference is for 

 flour, meal, breakfast foods, and condiments. It is especially partial 

 to red pepper, and is often found in ginger, rhubarb, chamomile, 

 boneset, and other roots and herbs that were kept in the farmhouse in 

 our grandmothers' days. It also sometimes gets into dried beans and 

 peas, chocolate, black pepper, powdered coffee, liquorice, peppermint, 

 almonds, and seeds of every description." 



Drawings, paintings, manuscripts, and books are in the catalogue 

 of its dietary ; and, again quoting verbatim : — " In pharmacies it runs 

 nearly the whole gamut of everything kept in store, from insipid 

 gluten wafers to such acrid substances as wormwood, from the 

 aromatic cardamom and anise to the deadly aconite and belladonna. 

 It is particularly abundant in roots, such as orris and flag, and some- 

 times infests cantharides." Various other subjects for depredation are 

 mentioned, including gun-wads, likewise injury to boots and shoes, to 

 which item I may add that I have personally (as noted further on, 

 with a figure of injured material) only too certain knowledge of the 

 injuries of the pest in the case of boots exported to South Africa. 



The method of feeding oi A. paniceum is stated to be that "the 

 larvfB bore into hard substances like roots, tunnelling them in every 

 direction, and feed also upon the powder, which soon forms and is 

 cast out of their burrows. In powdery substances the larvae form little 

 round balls, or cells, which become cocoons, in which they undergo 

 transformation to papas, and then to the perfect insect. . . . There 

 may be at least four broods" [in the course of the year, E. A. 0.] " in 

 a moderately warm atmosphere." * 



Amongst the subjects of attack specified above, it will be seen that 

 " seeds of every description " are specified; and relatively to this item, 

 the following communication was sent me on March 28th in the past 

 season from one of our leading nursery and seed establishments : — 



" May we ask your assistance in the following matter ? A customer 

 of ours in South Africa has just sent back the accompanying packet of 

 Onion seed, which you will see is badly attacked by a weevil or maggot 

 of some kind. When the seed left our hands last October, it was 

 perfectly free from anything of the sort, while some of the same parcel 



* I have ventured to extract the above at length as a list of the enormous 

 variety of substances preyed on by this widely distributed pest, given on the high 

 authority of the ofBcials of the U.S.A. Department of Agriculture (see reference, 

 p. 106, ante) cannot fail to be of great serviceableness to all who suffer from, or are 

 called on to investigate, the ravages. — E. A. 0. 



