‘é 
CARPET BEETLE OR ‘‘ BUFFALO MOTH.”’ 3 
the conditions favorable for the great increase of the insect. Carpets 
once put down are seldom taken up for a year, and in the meantime 
the insect develops uninterruptedly. Where there are polished 
floors and where rugs are used, or straw mattings and rugs, the 
rugs are often taken up and beaten, and in the same way woolens and 
furs are never allowed to remain undisturbed for an entire year. It 
is a well-known fact that the carpet habit is a bad one from other 
points of view, and there is little doubt that as carpets become more 
and more discarded in the Northern States the “Buffalo bug” will 
eventually cease to be a household insect of importance. The insect 
is known in Europe as a museum pest, but has not acquired this habit 
to any great extent in this country. Itis known to have this habit in 
Cambridge, Mass., and Detroit, Mich., as well as in San Francisco, 
Cal., but not in other localities. In all of these three cases it has been 
imported from Europe in insect collections. 
REMEDIES. 
THOROUGH HOUSE CLEANING. 
There is no easy way to keep the carpet beetle in check. When it 
has once taken possession of a house nothing but the most thorough 
and long-continued measures will eradicate it. The practice of house- 
cleaning but once annually, so often carelessly and hurriedly performed, 
is, as shown above, peculiarly favorable to the development of the 
insect. Two house cleanings would be better than one, and if but one, 
it would be better to undertake it im midsummer than at any other 
time of the year. Where convenience or conservatism demands an 
adherence to the old custom, however, there must be extreme 
thoroughness and a slight variation in the customary methods. The 
rooms should be attended to one or two at a time. The carpets 
should be taken up, thoroughly beaten, and sprayed out of doors with 
benzine, and allowed to air for several hours. The rooms themselves 
should be thoroughly swept and dusted, the floors washed down with 
hot water, the cracks carefully cleaned out, and kerosene or benzine 
poured into the cracks and sprayed under the baseboards. The 
extreme inflammability of benzine, and even of its vapor when confined, 
should be remembered and fire carefully guarded against. Where the 
floors are poorly constructed and the cracks are wide, it will be a 
good idea to fill the cracks with plaster of Paris in a liquid state; this 
will afterwards set and lessen the number of harboring places for the 
insect. Before relaying the carpet, tarred roofing paper should be laid 
upon. the floor, at least around the edges, but preferably over the 
entire surface, and when the carpet is relaid it will be well to tack it 
down rather lightly, so that it can be occasionally lifted at the edges 
and examined for the presence of the insect. Later in the season, 
