228 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



to flour alone, for it will eat any thing made of that arti- 

 cle, such as bread, cakes, and the like. Old flour is also 

 very apt to be infested by a mite (Acarus Farina] a . 

 In long voyages the biscuit sometimes so swarms with 

 the weevil and another beetle (Dermestes paniceus, L.) 

 that they are swallowed with every mouthful ; and even 

 the ground peas so abound with these little vermin, that 

 a spoonful of soup cannot be taken free from them b . 

 Bread is also devoured by Tro^osita caraboides^ a larger 

 beetle before alluded to c . 



Every one is aware that our animal food suffers still 

 more than our farinaceous from insects ; but perhaps you 

 would not expect that our hams, bacon, and dried meats 

 should have their peculiar beetle. Yet so it is ; and this 

 beetle, (Dermestes lardarius,} when a grub, sometimes 

 commits great devastation in them ; as does that of 

 another described by De Geer under the name of Tene- 

 brio lardarius d . How much our fresh meat of all kinds, 

 our poultry and fish, are exposed to the flesh-fly, whose 

 maggots will turn us disgusted from our tables, if we do 

 not carefully guard these articles from being blown by 

 them, you well know; and assailants more violent, hor- 

 nets, wasps, and the great rove-beetle, (Creophilus max- 



a Amcen. Acad. iii. 345. 



b Sparrman, i. 103. This insect, by Swedish entomologists, is sup- 

 posed to be a species of Anobium, F., (Plinus, L.,) but the specimen 

 preserved in -the Linnean cabinet is Silpha rosea of Mr. Marsham 

 (Cacidula pecioralis, Meg.). A small beetle of the first family of Cry- 

 ptopitagus of Major Gyllenhal swarms often in the ship biscuit, and 

 may probably be the insect Sparrman here complains of under the 

 name of Dermestes paniceus. 



See above, p. 172. 



d De Geer, v. 46. This insect appears nearly related to Mr. Mar- 

 sham's Corticaria pulla (E. B, i. 11. 14. Latridius porcatm t Herbst), 

 if it be not the same insect. 



