118 NATURAL HISTORY. 



The Cabinet Beetle (anthrenus museorum), plate 22, 

 fig. 1, is about one tenth of an inch long, of a dark 

 color, but altogether covered with scales of a whitish- 

 gray, which changes in the elytra to bands of reddish 

 brown. These scales, like the hairs on the wings of but- 

 terflies, are easily abraded. They are found in museums 

 or collections of insects, where they are very injurious. 

 Their larvae are brown, and can eat their way through 

 horn or wood. 



The Bacon Beetle (dermestes lardarius) is small and 

 oval ; about four lines long ; of a pale black, with 

 transverse bands of gray on the wing-covers. These 

 insects feed upon the skin and flesh of animals, and are 

 found in bacon or other smoked meats, and even make 

 their way in cabinets of stuffed birds or animals, where 

 they commit great ravages. If touched they feign them- 

 selves dead. A smaller species is the Fur Moth, which 

 is considered a terrible scourge to the furrier and collector 

 of dried insects. Nothing but extreme cleanliness can 

 arrest their depredations. Oil of turpentine, mercury, 

 and all other detergents of the same kind, have hitherto 

 proved ineffectual to extirpate the injurious insects. 



The Lady Bird or Lady Cow (coccinella septem- 

 punctata), is a very small, pretty beetle, about three lines 

 long, with the elytra red, but having seven black dots, 

 three on each wing and one in the middle. These pretty 

 insects are very useful, as both in the perfect insect and 

 larvae state they feed upon plant lice, or Aphidee, and 

 destroy them in great numbers. 



The Black Leaf Lion (coccinella morio) resembles 

 the 'lady bird, except that the body is black, spotted with 

 red. Its larvaa, which wages a murderous warfare with 

 the aphides, is the white caterpillar so often seen, and is 



