344 INSECTS AFFECTING VEGETATION 



dining-rooms. Give them no chance to get food and they will not 

 stay long; hence in parlors and sitting-rooms kept darkened and 

 free from food particles, flies are rarely seen. 



Besides these larger species which may be kept out by care and 

 screens there are often found, especially in late summer and early 

 fall, very small flies, with bright red eyes. These are the so-called 

 pommace flies, and they are attracted to and develop in fermenting 

 fruit juices of all kinds. A basket of over-ripe grapes, or an apple 

 or pear, beginning to decay, attract a swarm from the surroundings 

 at very short notice, and with the disappearance of the material 

 that attracted them the flies also disappear. 



Meal Worms. Flour, meal, bran, oatmeal, cracked, and even 

 whole corn, are apt to become infested with meal-worms of vary- 

 ing size, from the slender little grubs of the saw-toothed grain 

 beetle, which scarcely exceed an eighth of an inch, to the inch-long, 

 almost cylindrical larva of the Tenebrio species. The latter, yellow 

 and dark, are best known as meal worms, and are more usually 

 found in barns and stables, while the small species are more general 

 in the pantry and flour closet. The insects are usually brought into 

 the house with the purchased packets of corn, oat or other meal, in 

 cracked-dust and other mill products, and w r hen they are once es- 

 tablished it is not always easy to get rid of them altogether. 



Practically, in the household, it means extreme cleanliness; 

 getting rid of all infested material and keeping the supply in tight 

 boxes or packets. It will be better to have on hand or open only 

 enough for current use, and above all things have no remnants 

 in the box in regular use. I have seen a glass jar badly infested 

 simply because it was never quite emptied. When the supply got 

 to within an inch or half an inch of the bottom a new lot was 

 added, and the infested material at the bottom always served to 

 supply the material in a very few days. With this one point 

 kept in mind, one or two-quart glass jars, like those used for pre- 

 serving fruit, make excellent receptacles for the current supply of 

 peas, beans, lentils, the various meals and similar products. 



In barns, stables and granaries equal cleanliness is imperative, 

 and the great point here, also, is to always empty and clean out 

 bins, mangers and other receptacles completely, and never allow any 

 material to lie around in corners for weeks or months, open to 

 any stray beetle that conies along. 



Those slender meal-worms having a small, yellow head and 

 three pairs of short legs anteriorly, are all the larvaa of various 

 species of beetles, and in the house or in warmed barns or stables 

 they breed continuously. In cold barns and granaries there is no 

 breeding during the winter, and in these, when large quantities of 

 material become infested, the use of bisulphide of carbon is some- 

 times indicated. 



Another type of larvae is found in the meal moths, of which 

 a number of species occur in food supplies. These larvaB are really 

 small caterpillars, and they have, besides the three pairs of legs 

 anteriorly, a series of four pairs of short legs at the middle of the 



