384 



4. Do farmers realize that grubs are a great damage to their stock, and eudeavor to 

 prevent the trouble? 



5. If any remedies have been used, state their nature and whether successful or not. 



6. What proportion of beef cattle marketed from your county are afflicted with 

 grubs ? 



7. What amount does your local hide-buyer deduct from the purchase price of a 

 grubby liide ^ 



8. What class, sex, age, or breed of cattle are most troubled by the grubs ? 



We shall be glad if auy of our correspondents will take the trouble to 

 answer these questions dire -t to Mr. A. S. Alexander, of the Farmers^ 

 Revieic, 134 Van Bureu street, Chicago, 111. 



A NOTE ON MUSEUM PESTS. 



In Insect Life No. 7 (p. 222), Mr. John P. Brown notes the ravages 

 of Anthremis varius upon whalebone at Boston. 



The same industrious little insects attacked the baleen belonging to 

 one of the mounted whale skeletons in the National Museum and did 

 some little damage before their presence was noted and a stop put to 

 further depredations by liberal douching with a solution of arsenic. 



Anthremis is a dangerous pest on account of its small size and pre- 

 dilection for horn and feathers, but for downright mischief Dermesies 

 is by all odds the worst enemy of zoological material, promptly putting 

 in his appearance on every skin or rough skeleton that may have es- 

 caped the poison bath. 



Dermestes maculatus is the species now on watch at the National Mu- 

 seum, and the writer thinks, though it is merely a matter of individual 

 opinion, that this insect has completely driven away the weaker J>. Jar- 

 darius. 



D. lardarius is by no means to be despised, but maculatus far exceeds 

 it in strength and vigor, seeming to attack some objects merely for the 

 purpose of displaying its destructive powers. 



In'several instances boxes used for the storage of skeletons were per- 

 forated by the lively larvie until they looked as if riddled by shot, and 

 crumbled to pieces in the hand. 



The most curious object attacked by these insects, however, was a 

 plaster mold made over the head of a some time dead monkey and 

 stored away for the purpose of being used when the said monkey was 

 mounted. 



When taken down the mold was found to be pitted in many places 

 by Dermestes ; the dead bodies of larva? fitted into the holes they had 

 sunk in the flesh-tainted plaster leaving no doubt as to the origin of the 

 pits. 



Perhaps the palm should be awarded to the larva? that bored through 

 the side of a pasteboard box containing chloride of lime and succeeded 

 in burrowing 2 inches deep in it before giving up the ghost. — F. A. 

 Lucas, U. S. Rational Museum, Washington. 



