Furniture Beetles. 13 



greatly upon the conditions. But the whole life-cycle, from the laying 

 of the eggs until the beetles appear, must take at least a year or 

 almost a year for its completion. According to some authors it is 

 one year, as a rule, in the case of this species when living out of 

 doors in the dead branch of a shrub or tree. We have reason, 

 however, to believe that when living in dry old furniture it 

 generally takes two years, if not more, to complete its whole 

 development from the egg onwards to the perfect insect. Early 

 m March we have found larvae in two or three different stages of 

 development, which could not all have come from eggs laid in 

 the preceding year. They must have belonged to at least two 

 generations, and probably were of three different generations. 



FiQ. 4. 

 Ptilinus peetinicomis, L. male. a. Antenna of female. 



In the case of the death-watch beetle, and of Anohium hirtum, 

 a species which lives in old books, we have had larvae under 

 observation which lived for nearly three years. 



The dumber of generations all living at the, same time inside 

 the wood becomes a question of some importance when the 

 application of remedies has to be considered. 



The exit holes of the common furniture beetles (see Fig. 3, a) 

 vary according to the size of the individual be'etles, from about 

 half to three-fourths of a line in diameter. They occur commonly 

 in flooring and rafters of deal and pine-wood, as well as in 

 furniture made of these or the wood of deciduous trees such as 

 oak, beech, alder, willow, and many others. 



Those naade by Ptilinus pectinicornis, usually in, wood of the 



