CHAPTER IV. 



SPECIES INJURIOUS TO WOOLEN GOODS, CLOTHING, CARPETS, 



UPHOLSTERY, ETC. 



By L. O. Howard and C. L. Marlatt. 



THE CARPET BEETLE, OR "BUFFALO MOTH." 



(Anthrenus scrophularice Linn.) 



All the year round, in well- heated houses, but more frequently in 

 summer and fall, an active brown larva a quarter of an inch or less in 

 length and clothed with stiff brown hairs, which are longer around the 

 sides and still longer at the ends than on the back, feeds upon carpets 

 and woolen goods, working in a hidden manner from the under surface, 

 sometimes making irregular holes, but more frequently following the 

 line of a floor crack and cutting long slits in a carpet. 



Fig. 23. 



-Anthrenus scrophularice: a, larva, dorsal view; b, pupa within larval skin; c, pupa, ventral 

 view: d, adult — all enlarged — (from Riley). 



This insect in the United States is known as a carpet beetle in the 

 northern part of the country only. Beginning with Massachusetts, it 

 extends west to Kansas. It is not known as a carpet beetle in Wash- 

 ington or Baltimore, and is not common in Philadelphia, but abounds 

 in New York, Boston, all the Xew England States, and west through 

 Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas. It is 

 originally a European insect and is found in all parts of Europe. It 

 was imported into this country about 1871, probably almost simultane- 

 ously at New York and Boston. It has long been known on the Pacific 

 Coast, but not, so far as we are aware, in the role of a carpet enemy. 



The adult insect is a small, broad-oval beetle, about three-sixteenths 

 of an inch long, black in color, but is covered with exceedingly minute 

 scales, which give it a marbled black-and- white appearance. It also 

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