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pet pest, for the obvious reason that carpets are rare in most European 

 countries. Rugs, which are frequently taken up and shaken, do not 

 offer a comfortable dwelling-place for this insect, which is of a secreting 

 and retiring disposition. It seems probable that the pest was imported 

 almost simultaneously by carpet-dealers in New York and Boston, and 

 thence shipped in goods to inland cities. Dr. H. A. Hagen, in 1875, for 

 instance, was able to trace three-fourths of the infested carpets brought 

 to his notice to a particular line of goods sold at a single establishment 

 in Boston. At the present day this insect is the greatest household 

 pest in our northeastern States. It ruins carpets and all stored woolen 

 goods, while furs do not escape its attacks. Let us then briefly consider 

 its life history and summarize the best remedies to be used against it. 



The accompanying figures (Fig. 19 a to d), which I prepared some 

 twelve years since, illustrate three of the stages of the insect (all except 

 the egg), and the natural sizes are indicated by the hair lines at the side. 



The larva, which is the stage in which the insect is most familiar to 

 the housekeeper, is shown at a from above, and b from below. This is 

 the active feeding state in which it does the damage. The full-grown 

 larva is rather longer than the beetle and is brown in color, clothed 

 with stiff brown hairs, which are longer around the sides than on the 

 back, and still longer at the extremities. Both at sides and extremities 

 they form tufts, the hinder end being furnished with three tufts ot long 

 hair, and the head with a dense bunch of shorter hair. 



The quiescent state between the larva and the beetle is called the 

 pupa, and is shown at c. It needs no furthur description, but it should 

 be stated that the pupa is seldom seen, being formed within the last 

 partly split skin of the larva. 



The perfect beetle, d, is three-sixteenths of an inch long, nearly as 

 broad, and broadly elliptical in outline. It draws in its legs and feigns 

 death when disturbed. The figure will enable the housekeeper to rec- 

 ognize it when we explain that its colors are white, black, and scarlet. 

 The black and white are indicated in the figure, while the red is con- 

 fined to a stripe down the middle of the back, widening into projections 

 at three intervals, and meeting the irregular white bands. 



The beetles begin to appear in the Fall and continue to issue through 

 the winter and spring. They soon pair and the females deposit their 

 eggs, probably upon the carpet itself and not in floor-cracks, as is some- 

 times supposed. The eggs, with favorable temperature, soon hatch, and 

 the larva3 grow apace, molting some six or more times. Under ordi- 

 nary circumstances there is probably but one annual generation, al- 

 though there may be more; but, as I have shown by experiment with 

 related species, the larvae are able to remain for a long time without 

 food, in which case the growth is very slow and the number of molts 

 great. When full grown the larva seeks to hide itself in a crack in 

 the floor or some other convenient shelter and transforms to pupa 

 within the larval skin. After a time the larval skin cracks along 



