182 
LETTER VIII. 
INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 
INDIRECT INJURIES — concluded, 
| I wave not yet arrived at the end of my catalogue of noxious insects. I 
have introduced you, indeed, to those that annoy man in his own person, 
in his domestic animals, in the produce of his fields, gardens, orchards, and 
forests; in a word, in every thing that is endued with the vital principle: 
but I have as yet said nothing of the injuries which he receives from them 
| in that part of his property, consisting either of animal or vegetable matter, 
| from which that principle is departed. And with these I shall conclude this 
melancholy detail of evils inflicted upon us by the very animals I am 
enticing you to study. The rest of my correspondence, I flatter myself, will 
paint them in more inviting colours. 
The insects to which I now allude may be divided into those that 
attack and injure our food, our drugs and medicines, our clothes, our 
houses and furniture, our timber, and even the objects of our studies and 
amusements. 
Various are those that attempt to share our food with us. Flour and 
~——-meal are eaten by the grub of Tenebrio molitor, best known by the name of 
the meal-worm, which will remain in it two years before it goes into its 
state of inactivity :—its ravages, however, are not confined to flour alone, 
for it will eat any thing made of that article, such as bread, cakes, and the 
like. Old flour is also very apt to be infested by a mite (Acarus farine).* 
In long voyages the biscuit sometimes so swarms with the weevil and 
another beetle (Dermestes paniceus L.), that they are swallowed with 
every mouthful; and even the ground peas so abound with these little 
vermin that a spoonful of soup cannot be taken free from them.? Bread is 
also devoured by Trogosita caraboides, a larger beetle before alluded to. 
Every one is aware that our animal food suffers still more than our 
farinaceous from insects; but perhaps you would not expect that our 
hams, bacon, and dried meats should have their peculiar beetle. Yet so it 
— is; and this beetle (Dermestes lardarius), when a grub, sometimes commits 
1 Amen, Acad. iii. 345. 
2 Sparrman, i. 103. This insect, by Swedish entomologists, is supposed to be & 
species of Anobium F. (Ptinus L.); but the specimen preserved in the Linnean 
cabinet is Silpha rosea of Mr. Marsham ( Cacicula pectoralis Meg.). A small beetle 
of the first family of Cryptophagus Gyllenhal swarms often in the ship biscuit, and 
may probably be the insect Sparrman here complains of under the name of Dermes- 
tes paniceus, It is probable, however, that there is a mistake as to the specimen in 
the Linnean cabinet, as there is no doubt that Anobium paniceum Stephens is very 
injurious to biscuit, of which Mr. Raddon exhibited to the Entomological Society 
several perforated in all directions by the larvae of this insect, which, strange to sity» 
he found to feed also on Cayenne pepper. (Trans. Ent. Soc, Lond. i. proc. IXXxv- 
ii. proc. xxi.) 
