346 INSECTS AFFECTING VEGETATION 



every two or three days and destroying the insects found there, 

 the brood will be gotten rid of and the real provisions will be pro- 

 tected. 



The skippers are harder to deal with. Soft cheeses must be 

 protected by tight receptacles. Infested smoked meats must be 

 cleaned, i. e., the infested fat scraped off, the pantry must be 

 scrubbed with boiling hot soap suds and soda to get rid of all the 

 old grease, and it must then be made as tight as possible; the 

 finest brass wire mesh being used on the doors or wherever the 

 ventilating panels are situated. It is a good thing to fumigate 

 with sulphur if the pantry is in the cellar, to get rid of such adult 

 flies as may be present. 



It goes without saying that the cleanest and best kept and built 

 provision houses are most likely to be free from the pests. Meats 

 may become infested even while smoking, because the flies do not 

 seem to mind smoke, hence it is important that smoke-houses be as 

 clean as possible to prevent the breeding in floor cracks and else- 

 where where greasy material may lodge and remain. 



Drug and Cigar Beetles. There are two species of small brown 

 beetles, not over an eighth of an inch in length, that are occasionally 

 found in dwellings, but more frequently in stores and warehouses. 

 They attack dried roots, seeds, cane and rattan work of all kinds 

 and will even attack books, gun wads, cigars, plug tobacco and the 

 greatest variety of vegetable products. The drug beetle derives ita 

 name from the fact that it seems to prefer the stored roots, herbs and 

 samples of the apothecary ; the poisonous hellebore and belladonna 

 being as readily taken as the aromatic licorice. Signs of the presence 

 of this insect are little round holes in the infested material, and fine 

 dust at the bottom of the jar, drawer or other receptacle contain- 

 ing it. 



The tobacco beetle has very similar habits, but seems to prefer 

 tobacco to all other materials. If a box of cigarettes becomes in- 

 fested before it is sealed and remains unused for a few months, 

 little round holes may be found in every cigarette in such num- 

 bers as to make them unsmokable. Cigars are as likely to be- 

 come infested and old stock is very apt to be more or less damaged. 



The larvae of these beetles are small, fat, white grubs, nearly 

 smooth for the drug beetle, densely covered with stiff brown hair for 

 the cigarette beetle. Their feeding habits are very much alike 

 and in some places one, in other localities the other is most common. 

 As to methods of dealing with them, that depends much on the 

 material that is infested. Rattan, basket or willow work is best 

 soaked in or with gasoline, which penetrates the burrows and kills 

 all stages except, possibly, the eggs. 



Infested roots and the like cannot be so treated, of course, and 

 in most cases the best thing to be done is to use up the material to 

 the best advantage possible and thoroughly clean out and fumigate 

 the receptacles. For this purpose bisulphide of carbon will be 

 found most useful, and at the rate of a dram to a cubic foot of 

 space it will kill all the insects in a tight receptacle within a few 



