INSECTS INJURIOUS TO CEREALS 271 



are similar to those of the confused flour-beetle. The 

 beetles can be controlled in the same way as explained 

 for the other flour-beetles. 



The coffee bean-weevil (Arcecerus fasdculatus) is another 

 insect that may probably be looked for as a household 

 pest. It has a world-wide distribution, having been carried 

 all over the world through the activities of commerce. 

 It infests the raw berries of coffee, cacao beans, mace, and 

 other tropical vegetable products. In this country, it 

 has been found attacking cornstalks in the field, and breed- 

 ing in cotton bolls, in the fruit of the chinaberry tree, 

 in the pods of the coffee weed, and in the seeds of the wild 

 indigo plant. Chittenden records an interesting outbreak 

 of this weevil in a grocery store in Washington, D.C. 

 The weevils had apparently been introduced into the store 

 in bags of coffee. They had afterwards attacked dried 

 apples, fig cakes, and other edibles in the store. It would 

 be easy for them to be introduced into households pur- 

 chasing supplies from the infested grocery. 



There are several other insects that may occasionally 

 be found in stored vegetable products and which may find 

 their way, at times, into the household. It is quite likely 

 that some of these occasional pests may become serious 

 in some cases ; and it is easily possible that some of them 

 may become more or less habitual household pests. 

 Insects are constantly changing their food habits and we 

 may expect new pests at almost any time. Chittenden, 

 in Bulletin 96, Part I, of the United States Bureau of 

 Entomology, gives a list of 76 different species of insects 

 that are found in stored cereals, any one of which is prob- 

 ably capable of becoming a household pest at any time. 



