118 MAINE STATE COLLEGE 



Perfect Insect. — A beetle three-sixteenths of an inch long and 

 nearly as broad. The broadly elipical outline is shown in Fig. a, 

 which is enlarged, the real size of the beetle being shown by the 

 hair line on the left. The beetle is black and white and scarlet. 

 The ground color is black with three irregular white bands across 

 the wing covers [elytra] and a scarlet stripe down the middle of 

 the back widening at three points to meet the three irregular white 

 bands. The antennae are black, eleven jointed and bearing a three 

 jointed club at the end. The head is black marked about the eyes 

 and mouth by a few orange red scales. Under side of the body 

 black with red and white scales. The color is variable. Some- 

 times the red band down the middle of the back is white and some- 

 times the two anterior white bands are confluent, forming a broad 

 band of white. 



LIFE HISTORY. 



The beetles begin to emerge in the fall and continue to appear 

 during the winter and spring. There is believed to. be but one 

 brood iu a year, though the time of emergence of the beetles would 

 depend upon the conditions of heat and cold and food supply in 

 the houses and rooms frequented. In heated houses and rooms 

 they would transform more rapidly, while scarcity of food has been 

 shown to prolong the life of the larva and increase the number of 

 moults. When on the wing they may be found often on window 

 panes and in the fall out of doors upoa plants of the sunflower and 

 figwort families. Though Professor Riley thinks they lay their 

 eggs in the house before they leave it we see no good reason why 

 they may not, as they do in Europe, lay their eggs and maintain 

 themselves out of doors. The beetles soon pair after they merge 

 and the eggs are supposed to be laid upou the clothing and carpets 

 effected. The eggs soon hatch, if the temperature is favorable, 

 and the youug larvge attack the exposed' edges of the carpet, cloth- 

 ing, etc, often following a single thread or stripe in a carpet for a 

 long distance. When mature, in the fall, having moulted at least 

 six times, they seek cracks in the floor or other places of conceal- 

 ment and transform to the pupa state within the last larval skin. 

 The pupge finally ruptures along the back and the beetles emerge, 

 completing the round of life . 



