Ninth Report of the State Entomologist 



303 



ance with the general habits of the Dermestidce. Subsequently I 

 have reared it upon pieces of carpets, and complaints have been 

 received from Boston and elsewhere of its carpet-eating propensities. 

 It may possibly prove to be almost. as destructive to carpets as the 

 A. scrophularice^ for there can not be much doubt that its food is the 

 same, and that it multiplies with equal rapidity. 



Its Abundance. 

 Already in some houses it has become the more numerous. In my 

 own residence the beetle has fallen under mv observation, on window 

 panes, thrice as often as its prettily ornamented rival. As it will 

 assuredly ere long win a notoriety for itself, a common name will have 

 to be selected for it, now that we have two "carpet-bugs", comparatively 

 "new," both being beetles in their perfect form. Until a better name 

 shall be found, this may be known as "the black carpet-beetle." 



Description of the Beetle. 



A brief description may be of value for its identification. It meas- 

 ures 0.15 to 0.18 inch in length. In outline it is elongate-oval, twice 

 as long as it is wide, and rather flattened. Its head is small and so 

 bent downward as hardly to be 

 seen from above in cabinet speci- 

 mens, but extended, and with its 

 antennae conspicuous, when walk- 

 ing; both it and the prothorax are 

 black. The wing-covers are more 

 or less reddish, finely punctured, 

 with a short gray pubescence in 

 fresh examples under a magnifier. 

 The legs'and the antennae are red- 

 dish: the latter terminating in a 



. . Fig. 3.— Attaqenus pickus; a, antenna of 



large ovate club, the last jomt of male; 6, antenna of female. (After Jayne.) 



which is grayish. Abdomen beneath, brown with short ochreous-yel- 

 low hairs. Leors brown. Outlines of the beetle and of its antennae are 

 given in Figure 3. 



Food of the Larva of Attagenus Piceiis. 

 This insect by no means confines itself in feeding to woolens, but 

 like others of the Dermestidce, its larva feeds largely upon dried ani- 

 mal matter. In the notice of '^Attagenics megatoma,^^ in the Second 

 Report on the Jjisects of New York, 1885, pp. 46-48, its occur- 

 rence in hair-cloth furniture is mentioned, and the suspicion is 



