2 6S 



FARM AND GARDEN 



Meal-Worm. 



cause of the destruction of the ship-timber iu the Swedish dockyards, and whose 

 ravages he stopped by sinking the wood under water during the season in which 

 these beetles lay their eggs. It is about half an inch long and curiously narrow, 

 variable in colour, but usually brownish yellow, with black head and antennae and 

 a black edging to the apex of the elytra. 



In addition to the above, there are a large number of insects in 

 buildings which live on decaying matter and shun the light. Under 

 mouldering floors, in cellars, under barrels, and in such-like situations may be found 

 from A] nil to autumn the common churchyard-beetle (Blaps mortisaga), formerly 

 regarded as an omen of death. Its length is nearly an inch, and it is more than 

 twice as long as it is broad. Like its equally black relatives, this beetle secretes 

 an acrid fluid of peculiar smell. To the same family belongs the meal-worm 

 (Tenebrio molitor), found in flour in almost every bakery. The adult beetle is about 



half an inch long, and 

 is of an obscure pitchy 

 black, slightly shining 

 and finely spotted, the 

 mouth and anterior 

 edge of the head being 

 dull red like the legs. 

 The yellowish, parch- 

 ment - skinned larva 

 forms a favourite food 

 for nightingales and 

 otherinsect-eating birds 

 kept in captivity, and 

 in some places is pur- 

 posely bred in large 

 quantities for that pur- 

 pose. Another pest in 

 bakeries and granaries is the beetle known as Calandra grcmaria, which is only 

 one-sixth of an inch long, pitchy red in colour, shining and spotted, particularly on 

 the thorax, with deejay streaked elytra and reddish legs and antennas. This beetle 

 never flies, but remains during the winter in granaries, in crevices of the floor, 

 and similar hiding-places, laying its eggs on the tip of each grain, into which the 

 larva enters through an almost invisible hole, to feed and develop within. 



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THE CHCRCHTARD-BEETLE. 



Clothes Moths. 



Many of the smaller moths likewise frequent houses, one of the 

 most common being Aglossa innguinalis, whose larva lives in butter, 

 grease, suet, lard, and other fatty matters, upon which it feeds. The larva 1 , which 

 are often seen in March and April creeping along the walls of larders in order to 

 change into pupae, have sixteen legs, and are of a brilliant brown colour. They 

 develop into a small moth whose brilliant greyish brown upper wings are marked 

 with two wavy lines and a blackish central spot. The lesser clothes-moth (Tinea 

 pettioneUa) is found in furs, wool, horse-hair, furniture stuffings, etc., in which the 

 female lays her eggs in May. After a fortnight there creeps out a yellowish 



