INSECTS OF THE HOUSEHOLD 75 



anywhere near carbon bisulphide, because it is volatile and 

 its fumes are highly inflammable and explosive. 



In leaving the subject, as with all similar topics, make 

 perfectly clear its social and ethical bearings. In the 

 preliminary search for specimens the children will doubt- 

 less have discovered that some cast-off garment, piece 

 of carpet, fragment of horse blanket, or other rubbish 

 in some corner of attic or outhouse is breeding moths 

 enough to supply the neighborhood. It is quite as impor- 

 tant that boys should undertake this study as girls, 

 because often most of the moth supply is bred in stables 

 and outhouses. Is it right that some one should be igno- 

 rant and careless and thereby cause his neighbors labor, 

 annoyance, and loss ? 



[The Carpet Beetle, or Buffalo Moth, AntJirenus scrophularice. 

 Since its food is similar, this insect may be hunted for at 

 the same time with the clothes moths and should be treated 

 in somewhat the same way. It was imported into Boston 

 and New York from Europe about 1874, and it is inter- 

 esting, as showing how fast such pests may travel, to 

 note that it has become a household pest throughout all 

 the New England states, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, 

 Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas. It is not 

 commonly known as a carpet pest in Europe, because 

 tacked-down carpets are little used. 



The larvae, which, as in the case of the clothes moths, 

 do all the damage, are lively little fellows, about a quarter 

 of an inch in length, bristling all over with stiff brown 

 hairs. They frequent cracks in the floor about borders 

 and unused portions of rooms and, feeding from below, 

 cut long slits in the carpets. Besides poking them out 



