SKULKERS IX DRY FOOD MATERIALS 



441 



wheat, either in the adult or in larval stages. African Grain 

 Beetles, Tribolium castaneum or ferrugineum and Tene- 

 brioides mauritanicus, have been found in wheat imported 

 from Egypt to Glasgow. Both species, as well as Tribolium 

 confusum, are thoroughly naturalized under cover in Britain, 

 and the first has already been carried to India and the 

 United States as well as to Europe. The fact that all 

 three have been found damaging army biscuits suggests 



Fig. 71. Granary Weevil (six times natural size) and destroyed wheat (nat. size). 



that the Great War may be an important factor in dis- 

 tributing them throughout the world. The most destructive 

 and widely spread of Grain Beetles, however, are probably 

 the tiny brownish-black, long-snouted Corn or Granary 

 Weevils, Calandra granaria, the adults of which gnaw the 

 grains from the outside, while the grub spends its whole life 

 within a grain, devouring the inside until only an empty 

 shell remains. Whole cargoes of wheat and barley, worth 

 many thousands of pounds, have been completely destroyed 



