CELLAR BEETLES AND MEAL WORMS 41 



sometimes do much damage to meal, bran, and flour. 

 The larvae are much more familiar objects than the 

 imagos, though probably the reverse is the case with 

 the rest of the family. They are used as food for cer- 

 tain singing- birds, and other insectivorous creatures, 

 and hence are bred in large numbers by bird-fanciers. 

 This may readily be done by keeping them in bran, 

 when they will propagate themselves freely. The word 

 Tenebrio is Latin for a night-walker, or lover of dark- 

 ness, and, so far as the mere meaning is concerned, the 

 name would be just as applicable to the rest of the 

 family as to the present insects, the whole set being 

 devotees of obscurity. Molitor is Latin for grinder of 

 corn, and obscurus finds its explanation in the dull 

 appearance of the second species. 



T. molitor (Fig. 17) is a narrow, parallel-sided beetle, 

 a little over half-an-inch in length. Above, it is almost 



B'IG. 17.- A, Tenebrio molitor ; B, larva of ditto (natural size) ; 

 C, pupa of ditto. 



black, the faintest possible tinge of a dark brown-red 

 preventing it from being quite so ; or perhaps it might 

 be more correctly described as deep brown-red, so deep 

 as to appear almost black. Beneath and in the legs the 

 lighter colour is much more apparent. It is slightly 

 shiny, but only just sufficiently so to be redeemed from 



