17 
BONES, &c. 
Leather Beetle or Toothed Dermestes, Dermestes vulpinus, Fab. 
DrERMESTES vuLPINUS.—l1, beetle, upper side; 2, beetle, under side; 3, larva; 
4, pupa: all magnified, with lines showing natural length; 5, bones, and 6, wood, 
gnawed by infestation. The pupa after Prof. Riley; otherwise from specimens. 
The beetle figured above takes its common name from its de- 
structiveness, in grub state, to hides and skins, on which its ravages 
cause severe loss in Europe, North and South America, and other 
parts of the world. But also it is sometimes found in vast numbers 
in deposits of bones, such as are collected for manufacture of bone 
manure, from which the grubs stray away to adjoining woodwork, and 
burrow into it, until (as shown by the small fragment figured above) 
it is so riddled and honeycombed by the infestation as to be totally 
destroyed. The grubs also occasionally do great harm similarly to 
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