876 



lie gave iiic a saiiii)Ic from sonic hales of dried cod, which 

 were found in the tishniarket so hadly infested that the whole 

 eonsio'nnu'nt had to he destroyed. 



In looking ii]) the food habits of this beetle I find that it 

 has become notorious as a boot and leather pest, particidarlv 

 in the Tnited States, where it shows n fondness for sole- 

 leather. At one time this s])eeies Ix'came so destructive in the 

 large skin warehonses in London that a reward of £2,000 was 

 offered for a remedy, without any being discovered. There is 

 also a re]iort that considerable danuige Avas done to hams in 

 Arizona, and that the larvae sometimes destroy entomological 

 S]iecinieus. Furthermore, this beetle is said to injure both 

 corks and hard-wood planks; the larvae bore these snbstances, 

 however, only when searching for a safe retreat to ]nipate. 



T.ll-K HISTdKV. 



Xewly emerged l)eetles vei'c confined in glass jars for a 

 ))eriod of fourteen days liefore yonng, freshlydiatched larvae 

 were discovered. Since if was found that the eggs require an 

 in('ul)ation period of three days, the ])reovipositini2,' ]M'riod of 

 the beetles is about ten or eleven days. 



The several stages in the life history have been well de- 

 scribed by Tiiley (ISS,')), but it is interesting to conij^are obser- 

 vi;tions taken under tro]ncal conditions. 



E<l(i: — The freshly laid, cylindrical egus lack the trans- 

 verse im]n-essed lines that Riley describes, tho we found that 

 just before hatching, the segmentation rd' the larva, within, 

 ga\(' this appearance. 



It was found that the beetles ])lace the c'ius in any available 

 crevice, hence they are i-athei- difficult to locate at first. The 

 incubation ])eriod we found to be a]>]n-oxinuitely three days, 

 in jilace of four to seven days as observed by Tiiley. 



Larra: — The newlydiatcdicd larva is at first very liulit col- 

 ored, bnt soon darkens; there is a noticeable lighter area on 

 the median dorsal line, which branches on the head in the form 



