REPORT OF STATE ENTOMOLOGIST, 1898 



217 



known to cause the wall paper in a house to scale off by feeding on the 

 starch paste. In museums they are frequently troublesome on account of 

 their habit of eating away the surface of the labels. In one case coming 

 under my observation at Fort Plain, N. Y., the labels were so badly 

 eaten as to be illegible in a number of instances, and in one or two 

 cases the fragments dropped from the blocks to which they had been 

 tacked. These insects even worked their way into wooden boxes 

 containing microscopic preparations and attacked the labels gummed 

 on the glass shps. Another instance of their destructiveness is shown 

 in the accompanying reproduction from a photograph of a senate bill, 

 which had been undisturbed in the office for about 16 years 

 (^S* ^5)' It ^^ most probable the work of Lepisma domestica^ 

 as it has subsequently been taken in the office. Both of these species 



Fig. 15 — Work of Lepisma (original). 



are small and shun the light, running very rapidly to a place of conceal- 

 ment on the slightest alarm. They are slender, silvery gray, wingless 

 insects, belonging to the lowest order, Thysanura. Their long, fragile 

 antennae and delicate anal filaments render it very difficult to capture a 

 specimen unbroken. Lepisma domestica is represented very much en- 



