Report of the State Entomologist. 



209 



stock. Can you, without seeing the bug, suggest what it probably is, 

 and a remedy? If so you Avill confer a favor on the writer as well as 

 the subscribers of "Boots and Shoes." 



Dermestes vulpinus as a Iieather-beetle. 

 To the above, reply was made to the following effect : The depredator 

 is probably the Dermestes vul- 

 pinuH, or the leather-beetle. 

 It has for some time been 

 known to be injurious to skins 

 and hides, and has also been 

 found abundantly about some 

 bane-boiling works in Eng- 

 land. Two years ago, it was 

 brought to the notice of Prof. 

 Riley (see his report, in that 

 of the Commissioner of the 

 Department of Agriculture, 

 for the year 1885, pp. 258-264 

 [from which the accompany- 

 ing illustrations have been 

 obtained], as occurring in a 



Fig. 36.— The Leather-beetle, Deemestks tul- 

 piNUs: a, e^g, and larva; h, pnpa; k, beetle; d, 

 a denuded middle joint of the larva to show 

 spines, etc.; i, ventral view of tip of abdomen 

 of male beetle ; e, head of larva ; /, maxilla and 

 palpus of same ; {/, labium with palpi— enlarged. 



number of wholesale boot and shoe houses in St. Louis, where boxes 

 of shoes that had been jDacked for some time, were swarming with the 

 insect in the different stages of its development. It was observed 

 that the soles and heels of boots and shoes were more liable to be 

 injured than the uppers, probably resulting from the oily dressing 

 used in the latter. The operations of the larva are described as 

 boring round and smooth holes through the leather in every direction, 

 very often entering the shoe at the joining of the heel with the sole, or 

 at any point in the crevice between the upper and the sole, where the 

 larva could find the purchase for its boring. 



The larva sometimes transforms to the pupa state within the leather, 

 but it usually leaves it for a crack in the box containing the shoes, or 

 in the floor adjoining, where it burrows out a suitable place for its 

 change to the pupal and perfect stages. 



The beetle, also, is injurious to the leather by gnawing its surface, 

 but it does not burrow into it as does the larva. 



Professor Riley, in the paper cited, offers the following remedies for 

 its attack : 



The contents of the infested cases of boots and shoes might be 

 overhauled and treated with benzine or some other efficient insecticide. 



The larva could be destroyed by placing an open saucer containing 



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