INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 135 



Drugs and medicines also, though often so nauseous to us, form occa- 

 sionally part of the food of insects. A small beetle (Sinodendrum pusillum *) 

 eats the roots of rhubarb, in which I detected it in the East Indian Com- 

 pany's warehouses. Opium is a dainty morceau to the white ants 2 ; and, 

 what is more extraordinary, Anobium paniceum 3 has been known to devour 

 the blister-beetle (Cantharis vesicatoria), and even, as has been already 

 observed, Cayenne pepper. Swammerdam amongst his treasures mentions 

 " a detestable beetle," produced from a worm that eats the roots of gin- 

 seng ; and he likewise notices another, the larva of which devours the bag 

 of the musk. 4 The cochineal, at Rio de Janeiro, is the prey of an insect 

 resembling an Ichneumon, but furnished with only two wings ; its station 

 is in the cotton that envelops the Coccus. Previous to its assumption of 

 the pupa, it ejects a large globule of pure red colouring matter. 5 And 

 lastly, the Coccus that produces the lac (C. lacca) is, we are told, devoured 

 by various insects. 6 



Perhaps you imagine that these universal destroyers spare at least our 

 garments, in which you may at first conceive there can be nothing very 

 tempting to excite even the appetite of an insect. Your housekeeper, 

 however, would probably tell you a different story, and enlarge upon the 

 trouble and pains it costs her to guard those under her care against the 

 ravages of the moths. Upon further inquiry you would find that nothing 

 made of wool, whether cloth or stuff, comes amiss to them. There are 

 five species described by Linne, which are more or less engaged in this 

 work : Tinea vestianella, tapetzella, pellionella, Laverna sarcitella, and 

 Galleria mellonella. Of the first we have no particular history, except that 

 it destroys garments in the summer ; but of the others Reaumur has 

 given a complete one. T. tapetzella, or the tapestry moth, not uncommon 

 in our houses, is most injurious to the lining of carriages, which are more 

 exposed to the air than the furniture of our apartments. These do not 

 construct a moveable habitation like the common species, but, eating their 

 way in the thickness of the cloth, weave themselves silken galleries in 

 which they reside, and which they render close and warm by covering them 

 with some of the eroded wool. 7 T. pellionella is a most destructive insect; 

 and ladies have often to deplore the ravages which it commits in their 

 valuable furs, whether made up into muffs or tippets. It pays no more 

 respect to the regal ermine than to the woollen habiliments of the poor; 

 its proper food, indeed, being hair, though it devours both wool and fur. 

 This species, if hard pressed by hunger, will even eat horse-hair, and make 

 its habitation, a moveable house or case in which it travels from place to 

 place, of this untractable material. These little creatures will shave the 

 hair from a skin as neatly and closely as if a razor had been employed. 8 

 The most natural food of the next species, L. sarcitella, is wool ; but in 



1 Ptinuspiceus Marsh. 



2 On examining ninety-two chests of opium, part of the cargo saved from the 

 Charlton, previously to reshipping them from Chittagong for China, thirteen 

 were found to be full of white ants, which had almost wholly devoured the 

 opium. (Article from Chittagong, Nov. 1812, in one of the Newspapers, July 31, 

 18130 



3 Ptinus rubellus Marsh. * Bibl Nat. i. 125. b. 126. a. 



Sir Geo. Staunton's Vov. 8vo. 189. 6 Kerr in Philos. Trans. 1781. 



7 Reaum. iii. 266. 8 Ibid. 59. 



K 4 



