INSECTS AFFECTING CEREALS, ETC. 



123 



If i)ersoual experience and divisional records be any criterion, this 

 species excels all other grain feeders in its proclivity for obtruding its 

 presence in unexpected places. It is a most unwelcome gnest at all 

 times, its large size, both in the larval and adult stages, rendering its 

 appearance conspicuous, not to say alarming or disgusting, to most 

 persons. In the pages of Insect Life we have noted its presence in 

 milk (Vol. I, p. 11^), the evidence being that the milk had been adul- 

 terated with some farinaceous material in wliicli the beetle had lived as 

 larva. On pages 314 and 3G0 it is mentioned as having tunneled for a 

 long time through a flask of an insecticide (white hellebore) which was 



V 



/. 



\/ 



J /^ 



c 



Fig. 60. — Tenehroides matiritanicux : o, adult beetle with greatly en- 

 larged anteima above; b, pupa; c, larva— all enlarged (original). 



found by experiment to be of suflicient strength to kill currant worm.N. 

 Again, on pages 274-275 of Volume VI we note the presence of this 

 and other insects in refined sugar. Mr. R. S. Clifton, of this office, 

 recently showed the writer a larva found in powdered sugar, with the 

 information that the sugar had been returned pr(miptly to the grocer 

 of whom it had Just been purchased. In granulated sugar the occur- 

 rence of this and probably of other insects is generally the result of 

 accident, as it has never been proven that insects breed in sugar in this 

 condition. In the case of pulverized sugar, however, the presence of 

 insects would at least create a suspicion of adulteration with th)ur. 



