LEATHER BEETLE OR TOOTHED DERMESTES. ing) 
hides, this has been known for so many years that it is unnecessary to 
enter on them; but its injuries to bones and wood seem much less 
known of, therefore some of the very few references which I have 
found to this may be of interest. 
At the meeting of the Entomological Society on Oct. 1st, 1890, 
Mr. W. H. Blandford exhibited ‘specimens of Dermestes vulpinus, 
which had been doing much damage to the roofs of certain soap-works 
in the neighbourhood of London,” where he considered they had no 
doubt been introduced with bones.* 
The late Prof. C. V. Riley, in his exhaustive paper on this infes- 
tation,| mentions having found this species under buffalo bones in 
Kansas; and also, p. 261:—‘*The pupa is sometimes found in the 
larval burrow, but more often the full-grown larva leaves the leather, 
and seeks for a crack in the box or floor, often burrowing for its length 
into the solid wood. In the warehouses where the goods are boxed up 
in soft wood, the boards are often riddled by these burrows, made by 
larvee seeking for safe places for pupation. This instinct of self- 
preservation is necessary, as the larve have a fondness for the soft 
helpless pupz of their own species, even when other and more natural 
food abounds.” 
A very interesting account of bad attack of D. vulpinus to bones 
and wood in Sheppey, corresponding, except in being on a much larger 
scale, with that sent me from Devonshire last season, will be found in 
the ‘Hntomologist’s Monthly Magazine,’ Dec. 1884, p. 161, contributed 
by Mr. J. J. Walker, Ranelagh Road, Marine Town, Sheerness. 
Mr. Walker mentioned that, having heard that a bone-boiling 
works at Queenborough, in Sheppey, was greatly infested by ‘‘bugs,” 
he went to examine, and found the Dermestes vulpinus in enormous 
numbers on the walls, and also in quantities which could “be picked 
up by handfuls under bones, bits of sacking, &c., on the floor. The 
foreman of the works complained bitterly of the damage done to the 
woodwork of the building by the ‘ bugs,’ and showed me a thick oak 
plank, about twelve feet long by a foot wide, reduced to a perfect 
honeycomb by the ravage of the Dermestes larve. These, when full 
grown, had bored into the solid timber to change to pupex, of which I 
dug out numbers with the point of a knife.”—(J. J. W.) 
Mr. Walker also noted that the bones, he was informed, came from 
various parts of the world, but the greater portion was brought from 
South America. 
The figure 6, p. 17, of a small piece of the good specimens of 
injured wood sent to myself, gives some idea of how completely it was 
* Trans. of Ent. Soc. for the year 1890, p. xxxi. 
+ See Report of the Entomologist, U.S.A. Department of Agriculture, issued 
June, 1886, pp. 258-264. 
c 2 
