12 



Furniture Beetles. 



ments of the larva in the wood by enabling it to get a grip with 

 its body when it presses against the top or sides of the burrow. 

 Their special arrangement is sonaewhat different in the different 

 species of Anobiid larvae ; and their presence is a character by 

 which these may be distinguished from the larvae of the Lyctid 

 beetles, which do not possess them at any stage of life. 



The posterior body-segments are somewhat longer and more 

 swollen than those in front, and are curved round to lie beneath 

 them. The spiracles, or apertures for admitting air to the body, 

 are as usual in beetle larvae, nine in number along each side, but 

 are all very small and not easily made out in this species. 



When the larvae have burrowed deeply into the wood, the 

 amount of air which reaches them cannot be great, though it must 

 be enough to support their life. The powder left behind them 



Fig. 3. 



Worm-holes in deal flooring 

 (nat. size). 



6. Section through the wood. 



filling the burrows is generally very closely packed. It consists 

 partly of rejected fragments of the wood, and in part of the 

 undigested material which they excrete in the form of small oval 

 pellets. They shed their skin at intervals in the course of their 

 growth, and when the time for pupation is near, they direct their 

 burrows towards the surface, but stop short before quite reaching 

 it. In a Uttle cell, made by enlarging the burrow near its end, and 

 ceraenting together fragments of wood to block up the entrance, the 

 larva changes to a chrysalis or pupa of a white colour and with a 

 rather soft skin. Two or three weeks later the beetle emerges 

 from the pupa, and as soon as it has become hard in body and 

 jaws, bores its way to the outside from the end of the larval 

 burrow. 



How long the larva lives from the time of hatching until 

 pupation begins cannot be definitely stated, for it seems to depend 



