INSECTS AFFECTING CEREALS, ETC. \Z6 



If personal experience and divisional records be any criterion, this 



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

 presence in unexpected places. It is a most unwelcome guest 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. 112), the evidence being that the milk had been adul- 

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

 larva. On pages 314 and 3(30 it is mentioned as having tunneled for a 

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



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Fig. CO.— Tenebrnides mauritanicus: a, adult beetle with greatly en- 

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



found by experiment to be of sufficient strength to kill currant worms. 

 Again. <>n 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 promptly t<> 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 ol 

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

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

 insects would at least create a SUSpicioD of adulteration with flour. 



