18 



Siplianta acuta and Pulvinaria psidii are also found on tobacco, 

 although they are commoner on the coffee plant, and snails do some 

 damage to seedling and young plants. The grasshoppers, Elimsea 

 appendiculata and XipJiidium varipenne, are frequently seen on 

 tobacco and may feed on it to some extent, but the injury they do is 

 altogether negligible. A rather common introduced bug (Nysius 

 delectus) is also found on the seed pods of tobacco wherever grown, 

 but it has not been ascertained whether or not it breeds on tobacco 

 or is in any way injurious to the plant. There is also associated with 

 tobacco a bark beetle (Xyleborus sp.) the larva of which mines the 

 old stems, but it is not especially injurious. 



INSECTS AFFECTING- THE STORED PRODUCT. 



CIGARETTE BEETLE. 



The cigarette beetle, Lasioderma serricorne (Ptinidss) (fig. 9), is one 

 of those numerous species which feed altogether on dry, dead vegetable 



Fig. 9.— Lasioderma serricorne, the cigarette beetle, a, Larva; b, pupa; c and d, 

 adult; e, antenna — greatly enlarged — natural size shown by hair line. (From 

 Chittenden.) 



or animal substance, and thus become pests where animal and vege- 

 table products must be stored or kept for future use. Commercial 

 operations and the transference of stored products from one region 

 to another have gradually brought about a world-wide dissemination 

 of many of these species, which in the Tropics are especially injurious 

 and difficult to control. The attachment of the cigarette beetle to 

 tobacco, a commodity in universal use, has given this species peculiar 

 opportunity to attain a wide distribution, and it is now known as a 

 practically cosmopolitan pest. It breeds, however, in various stored 

 products in addition to tobacco— animal as well as vegetable — and 

 often becomes a household pest, attacking the coverings of walls and 

 furniture. 



It was first recorded from Hawaii by Blackburn in 1885 1 and is 

 undoubtedly of early introduction. Previous to commercial tobacco 

 growing it occasionally came to notice as a pest in houses and stores, 

 especially in tobacconists' shops in cigar cases, and was easily con- 



i Sci. Trans. Roy. Dublin Soc., 2. ser., 3 (1885), p. 243. 



