132 



LETTER VIII. 



INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 

 INDIRECT INJURIES concluded. 



I HAVE not yet arrived at the end of my catalogue of noxious insects. I 

 have introduced you, indeed, to those that annoy man in his own person, 

 in his domestic animals, in the produce of his fields, gardens, orchards, and 

 forests ; in a word, in every thing that is endued with the vital principle : 

 but I have as yet said nothing of the injuries which he receives from them 

 in that part of his property, consisting either of animal or vegetable matter, 

 from ivhich that principle is departed. And with these I shall conclude this 

 melancholy detail of evils inflicted upon us by the very animals I am 

 enticing you to study. The rest of my correspondence, I flatter myself, will 

 paint them in more inviting colours. 



The insects to which I now allude may be divided into those that 

 attack and injure our food, our drugs and medicines, our clothes, our 

 houses and furniture, our timber, and even the objects of our studies and 

 amusements. 



Various are those that attempt to share our food with us. Flour and 

 meal are eaten by the grub of Tenebrio molitor, best known by the name of 

 the meal-worm, which will remain in it two years before it goes into its 

 state of inactivity : its ravages, however, are not confined to flour alone, 

 for it will eat any thing made of that article, such as bread, cakes, and the 

 like. Old flour is also very apt to be infested by a mite (Acarus farince). 1 

 In long voyages the biscuit sometimes so swarms with the weevil and 

 another beetle (Dermestes paniceus L.), that they are swallowed with 

 every mouthful ; and even the ground peas so abound with these little 

 vermin that a spoonful of soup cannot be taken free from them. 2 Bread is 

 also devoured by Trogosita caraboides> a larger beetle before alluded to. 



Every one is aware that our animal food suffers still more than our 

 farinaceous from insects ; but perhaps you would not expect that our 

 hams, bacon, and dried meats should have their peculiar beetle. Yet so it 

 is; and this beetle (Dermestes lardarius), when a grub, sometimes commits 



1 Amcen. Acad. iii. 345. 



2 Sparrman, i. 103. This insect, by Swedish entomologists, is supposed to be a 

 species of Anobium F. (Ptinus L.) ; but the specimen preserved in the Linnean 

 cabinet is Silpha rosea of Mr. Marsham ( Cacicula pectoralis Meg.). A small beetle 

 of the first family of Cryptophagus Gyllenhal swarms often in the ship biscuit, and 

 may probably be the ins t Sparrman here complains of under the namo of Dermes- 

 tes paniceus. It is probable, however, that there is a mistake us to the specimen in 

 the Linnean cabinet, as there is no doubt that Anobium paniceum Stephens is very 

 injurious to biscuit, of which Mr. Raddon exhibited to the Entomological Society- 

 several perforated in all directions by the larvae of this insect, which, strange to say, 

 he found to feed also on Cayenne pepper. (Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. i. proc. Ixxxv. 

 ii. proc. Ixxi.) 



