1838. HOUSE—No. 72. 75 
nishing a caution against the careless use of articles containing eggs 
or larve of insects. In the year 1812, a woman in Biddeford, 
Maine, had an issue of long standing in the back of her neck. At 
this period she was confined to a dark and dirty apartment., At 
length the issue healed, soon-after which a tumor rose at the part, 
burst, and discharged a great number of larve, a tea cup full as was 
said. For several months these vermin seemed to be confined to 
the part, occasionally crawling out ; but when the abscess healed, 
the patient felt them to spread to the head, producing in their course 
severe pains, described by her as itching, biting, and gnawing sensa- 
tions. Some time after these sufferings, larve were discharged from 
the ears, eyes, nose, and mouth, varying in number and size, some- 
times one hundred in twenty-four hours, some as small as a_ hair, 
others almost as large as a pipe-stem, and two-thirds of an inch 
long. ‘The woman continued to be troubled with these vermin four 
years. Some of them were sent to Boston, from one of which 
Prof. Peck obtained the perfect insect. It proved to be the Tene- 
brio just described. It is probable they were introduced in the egg 
state, either by the parent insect gaining admission to the sore, or 
what is more likely, that poultices, composed of meal containing eggs 
or larvz, were applied to the sore, and proper attention to cleanli- 
ness not having been given, the larve established themselves unno- 
ticed in the part. 
Tenebrio punctulatus, badius, levis, and several other species, are 
found in the decayed trunks of trees, upon the debris of which the 
larve subsist, and resemble those of the meal tenebrio. 
The habits of the genus Cistela are similar to those of Tenebrio, 
but their injuries to trees are greater, for they subsist upon wood less 
advanced to decay than do the former. The body is oblong oval ; 
The antenne are long, tapering towards the extremity, and slightly 
serrated on one side ; the thorax is short and semicircular ; the eyes 
are crescent-shaped ; the nails pectinated like the teeth of a comb. 
This structure of the nails is peculiar to'some insects, which, in 
their perfect state, frequent flowers. 
The larve are somewhat like those of tenebrio, but are much 
more flattened, and the apex of the body terminates in three minute 
spines, the central one of which is the most prominent. ‘The anal 
