Fttrniture Beetles. 15 



pairing season, is of the nature of a sexual call, and in some oases 

 may be repeated over and over again for quite a long time. A 

 female of this species, captured when it had just come out of the 

 wood at the end of March 1917, was placed in a small box where 

 it continued to live for ten weeks, and at almost any moment 

 throughout the whole of that time was ready to respond by 

 tapping her head against the bottom or sides of the box, to a 

 sound made by tapping at the same rate with a pencil on anything 

 within a few yards of her prison. 



In the normal course pairing takes place shortly after they 

 have made their exit from the pupal cells, and the beetles probably 

 die a few weeks later, the female in the meantime having laid her 

 eggs. The eggs are white, and oval in form like those of Anohium 

 punctatum, but nearly twice as large. The larvae when newly 

 hatched are correspondingly larger than those of that species in 

 the same early stage, but otherwise are very similar in character, 

 except, however, that instead of having only one small, black spot 

 for an eye on each side of the head they have two small black 

 spots. When nearly full grown, the larvae are from about one- 

 third of an inch to little short of half an inch in length, with the 

 body strongly curved behind, and the more elevated portion of 

 the back of each segment from the 3rd to the 9th made rough 

 by a number of small brown spinules set in a broad band ; there 

 are spinules also, but not more than a few rows deep, on the 

 back of the 10th segment, none or only a few on the 11th, and 

 a number on the sides and ventral surface of the swollen and 

 rounded 12th or end segment of the body. In other respects 

 there is little to distinguish them from larvae of the common 

 ■furniture beetle. But their life is probably a year or so longer, 

 for the whole life-cycle in this species seems to take about three 

 years for its completion. Observations in regard to this are, 

 however, dif&cult, and those made have been few and far between. 

 It is possible that the normal period for the full development of 

 the beetle from the egg up to the final stage may be, as some 

 anthorities beheve, only one year, but there is no recorded instance 

 in support of that belief, whereas the larvae are known in more 

 than one case to have lived for a period of nearly, if not quite, 

 three years. 



The pupae are soft and white, and the pupal stage is said to 

 last two or three weeks, but as to what time of the year it usually 

 begins there appears to be no definite record. A half-grown larva 

 is sLted to have been found in August, and at the same time full 



