36o NATURE STUDY AND LIFE 



larvas from the late eggs do not attain their growth until 

 about midsummer of the next season. A female beetle 

 lays from twenty to fifty eggs. While practically any fari- 

 naceous material — corn meal, ground feed, cracker crumbs, 

 bread crusts — is suitable, feeding experiments have proved 

 that wheat, in some form or other, is preferred and yields 

 the best specimens. 



The easiest way to rear a supply is to imitate nature, 

 i.e., make a heap of bran and shorts in some out-of-the- 

 way corner, in the barn. Ground feed, corn meal, oatmeal, 

 flour, bread crusts — any of these, discarded for fresher 

 supplies — may be used. The beetles will find it and do all 

 the rest. It is well to tuck into different parts of the pile 

 raw potatoes or apples to supply water from time to time 

 as they are eaten, and the whole should be covered with 

 sacks or pieces of carpet. Woolen rags are called for 

 in the usual directions, but the number of clothes moths 

 that they may breed makes their use unadvisable, and cot- 

 ton cloths or burlap seem to answer about as well. The 

 only difficulties with this method are that other insects 

 are apt to find the material and become a nuisance and 

 that rats and mice, if they are allowed on the premises, 

 may devour practically the whole crop. 



Perhaps a better way is to fill a tight box or earthen 

 jar half full of the food material, put in scraps of old 

 leather, cover with woolen cloths, and have a lid of wire 

 screen. Put in a few hundred larvae or beetles and leave 

 undisturbed, except to insert a raw potato from time to 

 time. If this be done about April, a good supply of 

 larvae will be obtained for use the following fall, winter, 

 or spring. 



