HOUSEHOLD INSECTS 269 



as ham, bacon, and meat, fresh or dried, and that from 

 them arise brown, hairy larvae which feed on the fatty 

 parts of their food and eventually bury themselves therein 

 to pupate. Horns, hoofs, feathers, skins, beeswax, and hair 

 are also damaged by these beetles. 



Vulpinus, a beetle of similar shape and size to lardarius, 

 may be distinguished by the absence of the yellow-brown 

 band and the presence of a white patch on each side of 

 the thorax. In habit the two beetles are very similar, 

 but vulpinus is especially destructive to skins. 



THE CIGARETTE BEETLE 



This is another highly destructive household insect. A 

 tiny, but withal, practically omnivorous little fellow, the 

 cigarette beetle is known to science as Lasioderma serri- 

 corne. It is common in nearly all tropical and sub-tropical 

 countries, and, as a sample of its catholic tastes, we may 

 mention that it will breed in raisins, rhubarb, cayenne 

 pepper, rice, ginger, dried fish, upholstery, ergot, turmeric, 

 books, cane work, gun wads, liquorice, saffron, belladonna, 

 and in pyrethrum powder strong enough to kill cockroaches 

 a varied catalogue to be sure ! It is chiefly as a pest of 

 tobacco, in various forms, however, that the cigarette beetle 

 has become notorious. Mainly on account of its ravages, 

 the export of tobacco from the Philippines to the United 

 States of America decreased from 4,023,404 pesos in 1910 

 to 1,483,544 pesos in 1911. The greatest damage is done to 

 the wrappers of cigars and cigarettes, through which it eats 

 small holes. 



The female beetle deposits her eggs, singly, in the 

 crevices of leaf tobacco, usually along the midrib ; oviposi- 

 tion also frequently takes place within the open tip of a 

 cigar or cigarette, and the whitish, tough-shelled eggs are 

 most difficult to detect. After about a week the larvae 

 emerge from the eggs, and then destruction of the tobacco 



