ON THE APPLICATION OF HYDROCYANIC ACID TO THE 
INSECT PESTS INFESTING MUSEUM SPECIMENS. 
By L. WRAY, JUN. 
It may perhaps be thought that insect pests should be unknown in 
a museum; but in this, as in so many other cases, what should be and 
what is are quite different things. The poisons which are so freely 
applied to the specimens do not appear to afford much protection ; 
it matters not whether it is arsenic or corrosive sublimate that is used, 
insects abound, and spring-tails, moths, beetles and mites devour the 
specimens and appear to thrive on the poisons. Whether it is that, like 
the human opium and arsenic-eaters, a long course of poison-taking has 
enabled these pests to tolerate it, or what other explanation there may be, 
the fact remains that they can eat highly-poisoned things with perfect 
impunity. Mr. Montagu Browne, the Curator of the Leicester Museum, 
says, in speaking of arsenic: “It is also perfectly useless as a scarecrow 
or poison to those bé/es notrs of the taxidermist, the larve of the 
various clothes and fur-eating moths of the genus 77zea, or the larve of 
Dermestes lardarius, D. Murinus, and other museum beetles. They 
simply laugh arsenic to scorn; indeed, I believe, like the Styrian arsenic- 
eaters, they fatten on it. I could give many instances. Of course, when 
you point out to a brother taxidermist—rival, | mean: there are no 
brothers in art—the fact that somehow this arsenical paste does not 
work the wonders claimed for it, he replies, ‘Oh! Ah! Yes! that speci- 
men, I now recollect, was done by a very careless man | employed; he 
never half painted the skin.’ All nonsense! men, as well as masters, 
lay the ‘ preservative’ on as thickly as they can.” 
The atmospheric poisons, such as camphor, napthaline, creosote, 
kayu puteh oil, turpentine, carbolic acid, etc., have little effect on some 
of the worst pests. The vapour of almost any of them will, however, kill 
ants, and although not fatal to museum beetles, undoubtedly has a slight 
deterrent effect on them. It would seem that there is no way at present 
known of preventing the appearance of insects amongst zoological col- 
lections, so that a method of stopping their ravages when they do appear, 
without doing injury to the specimens, is a matter of considerable 
importance to all those to whose care natural history collections are 
entrusted. 
Professor E. M. Shelton, in Bulletin No. 16 of the Department 
of Agriculture of Queensland, quoting from Bulletin No. 23 of the Ento- 
mological Division of the United States Department of Agriculture, gives 
an account of the hydrocyanic acid gas treatment as applied to insect 
pests infesting orange, lemon and other fruit trees. This account 
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