56 Indian Museum Notes. [Vol. V. 



rate of i cwt. the acre, to barley when just above ground, on badly grub-infested 

 land. In whatever way applied, nitrate of soda, or any other good fertilizer 

 which will act at once, if melted and driven down by rain, has been found to 

 have a good effect, unless the rainfall is so great as to wash the fertlizer away. 



" Mechanical measures such as compress the ground and so prevent the larvae 

 'travelling' are of use; and so are the opposite methods of treatment, such as 

 hoeing, harrowing, etc., which act by throwing the earth open and disturbing the 

 grubs and throwing them open to bird attack. But what is commonly most 

 needed is preventive treatment to the ground applied well beforehand." 



3. Flour and Grain Beetles. 



Rust-red Flour Beetle, Tribolium ferrugineum, Fab. 

 Confused Flour Beetle, Tribolium confusum, Duv. 

 Prevention and remedies. 



"A very important point in household or store treatment is scrupulously clean» 

 ing all barrels, tubs, lockers, bins, or other wooden depositories in which flour or 

 grain that has been found to be infested by Flour Beetles may have been kept. 

 A thorough scrubbing applied with scalding hot -water by a good hard scrubbing 

 brush of the make with a few rows of longer bristles at one end, so that all 

 chinks and crannies could be well cleared out, would probably be very effective. 

 If soft soap and a little mineral oil of any kind could be used in solution in the 

 scalding water without danger of tainting the flour which might subsequently be 

 placed in the cask or other wooden receptacle, — this of course would bea great 

 additional safety. 



"The transmission of attack in connection with infested bags or packages is a 

 most fertile source of mischief. Independently of bags containing flour, those that 

 are returned empty convey the infestation, whether of the special kinds of flour 

 beetles under consideration, or the ' granary weevils ' or the ' Mediterranean 

 mill moth ' in legions, and it is not only in traffic to and fro, but where these 

 infested bags are used without proper purification as ship packing material 

 (technically I believe, known as ' dunnage '), that enormous mischief is done. 



" Preventive measures axe especially desirable in case of flour infestation as rente- 

 dial attempts are costly in any case, and may be injurious to the material, a rise of 

 temperature, for instance, of from 120 to 150° F. will (it is stated) kill most insects, 

 but a greater heat will injure the flour, and even this may be prejudicial. 



"Sieving removes the beetles and larger maggots (at a cost of so much pe r 

 stone), but the eggs and small young maggots will probably pass through the 

 meshes in numbers together with the flour. 



"Fumigation by bisulphide of carbon is efficacious but is dangerous both 

 with regard to its great inflammability, and also may be prejudicial to the 

 operators." 



