[153] Report of the State Entomologist. 295 



it occurs in the flour of our markets. If the species has been intro- 

 duced in any flouring mill, then we can readily see how a few specimens 

 could find entrance into many, or most, of the barrels sent therefrom. 

 Although the insect multiplies in almost incredible rapidity, yet, in 

 consideration of the ordinary ready sale and quick consumption of our 

 great staple, it would not ordinarily increase to a sufficient extent to 

 attract attention. If permitted to remain for several months before 

 it is used, until it becomes old flour, it might easily become in a condi- 

 tion to be properly characterized as alive. 



Of course it would not be at all agreeable to know that our vegetable 

 diet was so highly charged with animal matter. Yet, as the intrusion 

 is not of foreign material, but of elements scarcely changed — little other 

 than transformed — we need not be deterred from partaking with our 

 usual zest of the fresh wheaten loaf that graces our board, by 

 the thought that, perchance (without our knowledge), a hundred 

 thousand lives had paid tribute to its production. 



Food of Cermatia forceps Raf. 



In the notice of this Myriapod contained in my Fourth Report on the 

 Insects of New York, it is stated that it had shown itself so remarkably 

 sensitive to confinement, that upon all the occasions that it had been 

 brought to me alive, it had invariably died within two days thereafter. 

 The question was asked — can it succumb so quickly for want of its 

 proper food, or to need of moisture ? The question has been answered 

 in some experiments made by Miss L. A. Marshall, of the Industrial 

 School of Albany, who, becoming interested in its habits, had kept 

 an example under observation for a period of over three months in an 

 ordinary drinking glass with a piece of thin muslin bound over its 

 top. It was daily supplied by her with three or four drops of water, 

 which were taken with apparent avidity. If the drops clung to the 

 lower surface of the muslin, it would ascend the side of the glass to 

 get them as they hung. It had also been given occasionally small flies 

 and young croton-bugs, which it ate, and in one instance it was seen 

 to eat a young individual of its own species. 



That the Cermatia is dependent upon at least a daily draught of 

 water would appear from the fate of a specimen which Miss Marshall 

 had brought to me for my personal study after having been in her 

 possession for some weeks. It had been placed in a muslin-covered 

 glass and given as much water as it would accept. The following 

 day being Sunday, it was not visited at my office. On the morning 

 thereafter it was found lying dead in the jar. 



