INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 139 



Library brought from Cairo by Burckhardt. 1 Our collections of quadru- 

 peds, birds, insects, and plants have likewise several terrible insect enemies, 

 which, without pity or remorse, often destroy or mutilate our most highly 

 prized specimens. Ptinusfur and Anthrenus muscBorum^ two minute beetles, 

 are amongst the worst ; especially the latter, whose singular gliding larva, 

 when once it gets amongst them, makes astonishing havoc, the birds soon 

 shedding their feathers, and the insects falling to pieces. Mr. W. S. MacLeay 

 informs ine that at the Havana it is exceedingly difficult to preserve 

 insects, c., as the ants devour every thing. One of the worst plagues of 

 the entomologist is a mite (Acarus destructor Schrank) : this, if his spe- 

 cimens be at all damp, eats up all the muscular parts (Canihans vesicatoria 

 being almost the only insect that is not to its taste), and thus entirely 

 destroys them. If spiders by any means get amongst them, they will do 

 no little mischief. Some I have observed to be devoured by a minute 

 moth, perhaps Tinea insectella 2 ; and in the posterior thighs of a species of 

 Locusta from China I once found, one in each thigh, a small beetle con- 

 generous with Antherophagus pal/ens, that had devoured the interior. It is, 

 I believe, either Acarus destructor or Cheyletus eruditus that eats the gum 

 employed to fasten down dried plants. 



There are other insects which do not confine themselves to one or two 

 articles, but make a general and indiscriminate attack upon our dead stock. 

 Ulloa mentions one peculiar to Carthagena, called there the comegen, 

 which he describes as a kind of moth or maggot so minute as to be scarcely 

 visible to the naked eye. 3 This destroys, says he, the furniture of houses, 

 particularly all kinds of hangings, whether of cloth, linen or silk, gold or 

 silver stuffs, or lace ; in short, every thing except solid metal. It will in a 

 single night ruin all the goods of a warehouse in which it has got footing, 

 reducing bales of merchandise to dust without altering their appearance, so 

 that the mischief is not perceived till they come to be handled. 4 If we 

 make some deduction from this account for exaggeration, still the amount 

 of damage will be very considerable. 



There are three 'kinds of insects better known, to whose ravages, as 

 most prominent and celebrated, I shall last call your attention, The in- 

 sects 1 mean are the cock-roach (Blatta orientalis), the house-cricket 

 (Gryllus domesticus), and the various species of white ants (Termei). The 

 last of these, most fortunately for us, are not yet naturalised. 



The cock-roaches hate the light, at least the kind that is most abundant 

 in Britain (for B. germanica, which abounds in some houses, is bolder, 

 making its appearance in the day, and running up the walls and over the 

 tables, to the great annoyance of the inhabitants), and never come forth 

 from their hiding-places till the lights are removed or extinguished. In the 

 London houses, especially on the ground-floor, they are most abundant, 

 and consume every thing they can find, flour, bread, meat, clothes, and even 

 shoes. 5 As soon as light, natural or artificial, reappears, they all scamper 

 off as fast as they can, and vanish in an instant. These pests are not 



1 Trans. Ent. Soc. Land. ii. proc. xlii. xliii. ; proc. 18. ix. 



2 Atropos pulsatorius does much mischief by devouring the more delicate parts 

 of minute insects in collections in which camphor or some other insectifuge is 

 not kept. 



5 It appears from Humboldt (Personal Narrative, E. T. v. 116.) that the destruc- 

 tive insects called by this name are Termites. ' 

 * Ulloa, i. 67. 5 Amcen. Acad. iii. 345. 



