326 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [December, 



siderable trouble to stored products of a vegetable origin, and this whether 

 it be a leaf, branch, trunk or root. Nothing is sacred to the insects, and 

 without care everything will find a pest to attack it. The botanists and 

 druggists find that they must use caution in preserving their pressed and 

 ■dried plants and herbs from the attacks of certain species of insects, and 

 even poison does not always act as a saviour. A great number of the 

 species that belong in the category of pests that feed upon dry vegetable 

 matter, are members of the Coleopterous family Ptinidae, and none of the 

 members of this family have a worse and better deserved reputation than 

 Lasioderma serricorne and Sitodrepa panicea. The first of these, owing 

 to the frequence of its attacks upon tobacco, has locally received the name 

 " tobacco beetle," feeding upon dried tobacco in all its stages. It is else- 

 where called the " cigarette, beetle," and as such has been classed among 

 the beneficial insects. There might be some justice in this were it not for 

 the miserable habit that the insect has cf also attacking cigars, which, to 

 •some entomologists, are as much a necessity as food and drink. A 

 very good second to the Lasioderma is the Sitodrepa, although this 

 is not so commonly known as a tobacco-feeding insect; but this means 

 nothing, for it has a decided catholic taste, and it will feed upon gunwads 

 and belladonna quite as readily as it will upon tobacco. To my friend, 

 Mr. J. Turner Brakeley, Bordentown, N. J., I owed at one time part of a 

 box of cigars. I felt very grateful to him until I examined them carefully, 

 and found that it was not to the friend, but to the entomologist that he 

 had sent them, for they all looked very much like the specimens of which 

 a figure is here presented. Every one of them had anywhere from three 

 to ten or a dozen little round holes from which the beetles had emerged, 

 and the exterior proved to be very much better than the interior, for in 

 the majority of cases a large proportion of the inside of the cigar, or fill- 

 ing, had been eaten away, and only chips and frass remained, mocking 

 all attempts at smoking, even after the holes had been pasted up. Very 

 much the same sort of attack is made by the Lasioderma not only upon 

 cigars, but upon plug tobacco, and at one time there was quite a disturb- 

 ance among certain tobacco manufactures in one of the Southern States 

 •over the unusual increase of this pest in their factories. Specimens were 

 sent to the National Museum to obtain information on the subject, and 

 some good samples ought to be in that institution. The differences be- 

 tween the Lasioderma and the Sitodrepa are very readily discovered, and 

 are indicated in figures i and 2. The Lasioderma is the larger insect, 

 very much broader comparatively, with a smooth surface, the elytra not 

 striate, but clothed with fine silky hair, which shows a tendency to arrange 

 itself into distinct rows. The antennae have the joints subequal, and no 

 very strongly marked antennal club. In the Sitodrepa, on the contrary, 

 we have a narrower, more elongate insect, with the elytra distinctly stri- 

 ated. The antennae are quite different, and have a distinct three-jointed 

 serrated club. The larvae of the two species look very much alike, and 

 are white, fleshy, wrinkled grubs, which are usually curled up as shown in 



