6 OUR HOUSEHOLD INSECTS 



succeeding the head. It is of a whitish colour, as might 

 be expected in a creature which spends its time in the 

 darkness of a tunnel ; only in the jaws, and that part 



FIG. 2. I^arva of Anobium domesticum (a, back view ; b, side view). 



of the head immediately surrounding the mouth, is any 

 more definite colour to be found, and this part appears 

 as a dark brownish-black spot oh the otherwise imma- 

 culate insect. 



. Except in the head, the skin is soft and yielding, and 

 a few hairs are scattered along its sides. These larvae 

 are very seldom seen, as, in order to get at them, the 

 wood in which they are domiciled must be pulled to 

 pieces. Their food consists of the wood itself, which 

 by their powerful though tiny jaws is bitten off in 

 minute particles, many of which, however, are left un- 

 eaten, and either clog up the burrows or are ejected at 

 their openings, where they constitute the tiny heaps of 

 yellow dust referred to above. No wood is so old and 

 dry that they cannot extract nourishment from it ; in 

 fact, the older and drier it is the better they like it. 

 An animal subsisting on such food might be expected 

 to be a lean wiry creature of half-starved aspect, but 

 exactly the contrary is really the case ; for these white 

 grubs are fat and flourishing, and a full-grown one 

 might be supposed to have been fattening up for a 

 prize competition, for it looks as bloated as a prize pig. 



