CARPET BEETLE —SILVER FISH— CHEESE SKIPPER 357 
The Carpet Beetle, or Buffalo Moth (Anthrenus scrophularie L.) 
A small, hairy, oval larva, about one fourth of an inch long, feeds on 
carpets, working from the under side, and usually following the line of 
acrackin the floor. The adult is a beetle, three sixteenths of an inchin 
Fic. 563.—The Carpet Beetle. 
Fic. 562.— Work of the Car- Enlarged and natural size. 
pet Beetle. Original. Original. 
length, dark in color, and irregularly mottled with white. The beetles 
appear through the fall and winter. 
Where rugs are used, no damage is recorded as a rule. If carpets 
are necessary, and infestation is in progress, it is essential to take up 
the floor coverings, spray them with gasoline, and wash all cracks with 
hot suds, following with gasoline. 
The Silver Fish (Lepisma saccharina L.) 
Substances containing sugar, starch, or sizing are sometimes injured 
by a tiny, active, wingless insect of a silvery appearance, having very 
long antenne and three long feclers at the hind end of the body. It 
invariably runs quickly away when objects on which it is at work are 
brought to the light. 
Pyrethrum dusted into places where it hides will kill them, or they 
may be poisoned by dipping pieces of cardboard into a thick paste in 
which has been mixed Paris green, and slipping these into cracks where 
they are abundant. 
