6 BULLETIN 131, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



in stored products, and that it infests groceries, drugs, and dried 

 products indiscriminately, but possibly favors manufactured tobacco. 

 He also reports having found the insect very injurious to wall paper 

 and books in Honolulu. 



Dried animal substances occasionally are attacked. Dried fish is 

 mentioned as a food substance by Mackie (74), and Van Dine (55) 

 reports the beetle as having been reared from fish guano used as 

 fertilizer. There are also reports of leather goods having been in- 

 jured. The late F. C. Pratt (53) noted injury by this species to an 

 insect collection in western Texas, about 10 per cent of the specimens 

 in a box of Orthoptera having been damaged. 



There are numerous records of the tobacco beetle feeding upon and 

 injuring upholstered furniture. Cook (25) has described injury to 



Fig. 5. — Work of the tobacco beetle (Lasioderma serricorne) in pressed yeast 



cake. 



furniture, and stated that the work of the insect " made the plush 

 covering look like a sieve." Chittenden (53, 58) has reported the 

 insect as damaging upholstered furniture, rugs, and tapestry in 

 dwelling houses in the District of Columbia, Wast Virginia, and 

 New Jersey. Osborn (46, 49) has reported infestation of plush up- 

 holstered furniture at Columbus, Ohio. Silk as food is mentioned by 

 Osborn (46). Injury to silk and plush hangings in France has been 

 mentioned by Bordage (38). 



The occurrence of the beetle in some of the substances given is 

 undoubtedly more or less accidental. Attempts made by the writer 

 to rear the beetle from the egg stage in many of these substances 

 resulted in failure. In many instances the larvae fed for a time but 

 did not complete their transformation to the adult stage. In con- 

 trols on these experiments adults were reared from eggs placed in 

 yeast cakes, tobacco seed, or cured tobacco, at the same time and kept 

 under the same conditions. 



