TEXAS NATUEE OBSERVATIONS AND REMINISCENCES. 21 



breeding cycle, i. e., most of them 

 after opening the minute globular 

 capsule showed a small live and 

 curved larva. In others the ma- 

 turing larva beetles could be seen, 

 the larval state being in appear- 

 ance identically the same as photo- 

 graphed in Mgs. 2 and 3. On 

 closer inspection of Fig. 4 several 

 of the whitish larvae of this beetle 

 are seen, for instance at the places 

 marked 1, and also two of the ma- 

 ture tobacco beetles, (center right 

 rear) . Some of these larvae were 

 quite disfigured in general ap- 

 pearance from the fine orris root 

 powder adhering to their fine 



Fig. 4. . 



Cocoons of the Tobacco Beetle with Larvae 



Partly or Entirely Encapsulated. 



hairy filaments. In a few artifi- 

 cially opened cocoons the larva is 

 seen quite plainly in the illustra- 

 tion. 



It is an interesting fact, al'so 

 stated by Mr. Lucas, that these 

 tobacco beetles prefer the best 

 brand of tobacco and the more so 

 as they are occasionally found in 

 tobacco which had been sealed air- 

 tight in tin or wooden boxes and 

 therefore the probability presents 



itself that these pests had been 

 conveyed through tobacco goods 

 in the tobacco factories before be- 

 ing put on the market, it being 

 very difficult to detect the minute 

 ova. How these beetles develop in 

 all sorts of tobacco is seen, as a 

 second example, in the so-called 

 plug tobacco. Fig. 2 (1), which 

 I also procured from the druggist. 

 I prepared the view with an ob- 

 jective lens applied to the camera, 

 showing the tobacco larvae about 

 one-half times magnified, also the 

 second figure of the same photo- 

 graph, showing some of the larvae 

 of the drug store beetle and the 

 tobacco insect and also the ap- 

 pearance and size (about one-half 

 Inrger of the tobacco and the 

 drug beetle (the latter being more 

 slender) . 



In further experimenting with 

 this matter, I succeeded in pre- 

 paring the view, (Fig.3,) using an 

 extra strong lens to the 

 camera at quite near focus, show- 

 ing six of the tobacco larvae, two 

 full-grown tobacco beetles and 

 one drug store beetle (the lowest 

 one in the photograph) magnified 

 considerably. 



The third illustration in Fig. 2 

 shows the closely allied drug store 

 beetle, named because of its pref- 

 erance of invading drug store 

 goods and infesting precisely in 

 the same manner as the tobacco 

 beetle. This view shows the 

 beetles in very slightly less than 

 normal size. This drug store 

 beetle is more slenderly built than 

 the tobacco beetle, but otherwise 

 is of a similar, reddish brown 

 color and very active in its move- 

 ments. Both the tobacco and drug 

 store beetle, it seems, undergo 

 about one and the same cycle of 

 development and' when the ova 

 are deposited in favorable media 

 of a powdered nature, such as rhu- 

 barb, orris root, slippery elm, lin- 

 seed meal, tobacco or cayenne 

 T>ep)per, the ovum transforming 

 into the larval state is encysted 



