INSECTS INJURIOUS TO TOBACCO 239 



The Cigarette-beetle * 



The most serious pest of dried tobacco is the little brown 

 Cigarette-beetle, which also attacks various drugs and stored 

 food products. The beetle is but one-sixteenth inch long, of a 

 brownish color, and with the pro-thorax bent down so that the 

 head is obscured as if under a hood. 



" Working as it does in all kinds of cured tobacco and living 

 in this substance during all the stages of its existence," says 

 Dr. L. 0. Howard, " it damages cigarettes and cigars principally 

 by boring out of them, making round holes in the wrappers so 

 that they will not draw. Leaf tobacco is injured for wrapping 



6jj 

 e <*s 



FIG. 172. The cigarette-beetle: a, larva; b, pupa; c, adult; d, side view of 

 adult; e, antenna all greatly enlarged; e, still more enlarged. (After 

 Chittenden, U. S. Dept. Agr.) 



purposes by being punctured with holes made both by the Ia'rva3 

 and 'beetles, and fillers and finecut are injured by the reduction 

 of their substance by the actual amount consumed by the larvae." 

 " The cigarette-beetle is practically cosmopolitan, and probably 

 occurs in most tobacco factories in the Southern States, as well 

 as in most wholesale drug stores. In the far South this insect 

 multiplies rapidly throughout the greater part of the year, and 

 its development is practically continuous in artificially warmed 

 factories farther north." 



Life History. In heated factories the insect may be found in 

 all stages throughout the year. Otherwise it seems to pass the 

 winter months in the larval state. The larva is slightly larger 



* Lasioderma serricorne Fab. Family Ptinida;. 



