30 
tobacco factories. It is doubtful, however, whether by its work it 
will ever rid an establishment of the beetle, but it undoubtedly helps 
to prevent rapid multiplication, and consequent great damage. 
OTHER INSECTS INJURING DRIED TOBACCO. 
There are several beetles which occasionally affect tobacco after 
the leaves are dried, in much the same manner as does the cigarette 
beetle, but none of them, as we have said, approximate in importance 
the latter insect. The so-called drug-store beetle (Sitodrepa panicea, 
fig. 25), an insect which has an enormous range of food, and occurs 
upon very many articles found on the shelves of drug stores, whence 
its popular name, will also breed successfully in tobacco, although 
we can not say that this substance is its preferred food. No cases 
have been brought to our attention of any serious damage to tobacco 
by this species. The ordinary rice weevil (Calandra oryza), another 
inseci: which feeds upon various stored products, has also been found 
breeding in tobacco, although its importance as a tobacco insect does 

C 
Fia.25.—The drug-store beetle: a, larva; b, pupa; c, adult; d, adult from side; e, antenna—all 
greatly enlarged, e still more enlarged (reengraved from Chittenden’s illustration). 
not exceed that of the drug-store beetle, if indeed it equals it. 
Another insect which, though not at all a tobacco insect, became, 
some years ago, the cause of a curious litigation regarding the rejec- 
tion of a large cargo of tobacco from this country by the French 
Government, is the so-called leather beetle (Dermestes vulpinus). 
The tobacco in question, in numerous hogsheads, was received in 
France, and upon examination it was found to have been perforated 
by numbers of the larve of this latter beetle, which had burrowed 
into the tobacco for a considerable distance and transformed to pupze 
and later into beetles. The entire cargo was rejected by the French 
Government and returned to America, and the litigation which ensued 
was through the endeavor to place the responsibility for the entrance 
of the insect upon either the shippers or the carriers. It was shown 
that the tobacco must, at some period of its journey, have been stored 
in close proximity to bales of hides affected by this insect. The 
larva of the Dermestes, instinctively on reaching full growth, crawls 
away from its original habitat and bores into any near-by substance 
to find a protected spot for pupation. In this case the larve were 

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ae ok 
