1899] 



49 



FLOUR AND GRAIN BEETLES. 



Rust-red Flour Beetle. Tribolium fernif/ineiun, Fab. 

 Confused Flour Beetle. Tribolium confusum, Duv. 



Tribolium fekrugineum. — 1, beetle; 2, larva ; 3, pupa — magnified, and with lines 

 showing natural length ; 4, head with antenna', much magnified. 



The Rust-red Flonr Beetle, figured above, is sometimes described 

 as being a cosmopolitan species, but it should more accurately be said 

 to be present in all parts of the world which are warm enough to suit 

 its habits. In this country it nas been noticed at a good many 

 localities, extending in England as far northwards as Northumberland, 

 and in Scotland in the Forth district, and is recorded as occurring in 

 flour ; also as being often found in bakers' shops, and occasionally 

 taken under the bark of old trees, and it is said to be common. It 

 was not, however, until the past season that it was brought under my 

 notice, not as a home pest, but as an infestation to which cargoes of 

 of flour transmitted to us from various parts of the world were 

 seriously liable. 



The insects appear to be by no means strictly limited in their diet 

 (and consequently infestation may spread from quarters where it might 

 not have been expected) ; but, without minute specification here, it 

 attacks grain in the form of cereals, and other seeds, articles containing 

 farinaceous matters, and very especially flour and meal. 



The various cases of infestation which I had the opportunity of 

 examining were in Wheat flour ; and in one of these, transmitted 

 direct from one of the most southerly ports of the United States, I 

 found the infestation so numerously present that I had excellent 

 opportunity of studying it in its various stages, and also of noticing 

 the discoloured and injured state of the flour, which is a characteristic 

 of its presence where this occurs to anything like the extent commonly 

 understood by the word '^ infestatiun." 



