190 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



and timber suffer from the attacks of the Ptilinus, but articles of 

 dress and food are also injured by them. Specimens of natural 

 history are often spoiled by the holes which are drilled through 

 them by the beetles; and stationers sometimes suffer from the 

 voracious insects, which bore holes through their wafers, fix them 

 together, and there undergo their transformations within them. 

 One species is obnoxious to wholesale druggists on account of the 

 damage which it does to the ginger. In some cases, half the 

 ginger is drilled with holes, and rendered quite unsalable. It 

 is not, however, lost entirely, because it is reserved for the mill, 

 and is then sold as ground ginger, the insects and their grubs 

 being reduced to powder together with the ginger which they 

 have not consumed. Such specimens are of course not exhibited 

 to the general gaze, as the public would be very cautious of pur- 

 chasing ground ginger if they knew what it contained. In the 

 British Museum, however, may be seen several pieces of ginger 

 completely eaten away by the beetle, and numerous examples of 

 the insect itself are placed in the same tray. The little beetles 

 which eat cork, and are so mischievous in the cellar, belong to 

 the genus Mycetophagus. They will eat rotten wood or fungi, 

 but always prefer cork, and in some cases have not only caused 

 much expense by forcing the proprietor to recork all his bottles, 

 but have sometimes destroyed the cork so completely, that the 

 wine has escaped. 



The reader may remember that a so-called "petrified man" 

 was brought from Australia, and exhibited in London during 

 1862. Having very great doubts about the petrifaction of a 

 human being, I went to see it, and at a glance perceived that it 

 was no petrifaction at all, but simply a moderately good example 

 of a desiccated body, such as are common enough in museums, 

 and sometimes occur even in this country. The exhibitor stoutly 

 asserted that it was a petrifaction, but as I noticed the tunnels 

 of sundry Ptilini in various parts of the head, body, and limbs, 

 there could be no doubt but that the body had not been changed 

 into stone. 



Cylindrical holes of small size may be often seen in the bark 

 of oak-trees, from which dart certain long-bodied little beetles, 

 with beautifully-fringed antennae, and shaped much like the com- 

 mon skip-jack beetles. These insects belong to the genus Melasis. 



The common Meal-worm may be placed with the wood-borers, 

 for it is able to gnaw its way through almost any bread that can 



