INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 201 



voured, making holes and channels in it ; and another insect 

 of the same order {Attagenus pellio), Linne tells us, will 

 sometimes entirely strip a fur garment of its hair.^ A small 

 beetle of the Capricorn tribe {^Callidium pygm(Eum Fabr.) I 

 have good reason to believe devours leather, since I have 

 found it abundant in old shoes. ^ 



Next to our garments our houses and buildings, which 

 shelter us and Our property from the inclemency and injuries of 

 the atmosphere, are of consequence to us : yet these, solid 

 and substantial as they appear, are not secure from the attack 

 of insects ; and even our furniture often suffers from them. 

 A great part of our comfort within doors depends upon our 

 apartments being kept clean and neat. Spiders by their webs, 

 which they suspend in every angle, and flies by their excre- 

 ments, which they scatter indiscriminately upon every thing, 

 interfere with this comfort, and add much to the business of 

 our servants. Even ants will sometimes plant their colonies 

 in our kitchens (I have known the horse-ant, Formica rufa^ 

 do this), and are not easily expelled.^ Those of Sierra Leone, 

 as I was once informed by the learned Professor Afzelius, 

 make their way by millions through the houses. They reso- 

 lutely pursue a straight course ; and neither buildings nor 

 rivers, even though myriads perish in the attempt, can divert 

 them from it. Several tribes of insects seek their food in 

 the timber employed in our houses, buildings, gates or fences, 

 or made up into furniture. The large oaken beams, which, 

 according to the old mode of building, support the joists of 

 the upper floors in the houses at Brussels, as I had an oppor- 

 tunity of observing when there in 1836, have often their ex- 

 tremities so eaten away like a honeycomb by the larva? of a 



1 Amoe?i. Acad. 346. 



2 Hides and skins are attacked by several species of Dermestes, which are 

 sometimes so injurious in the large skin warehouses of London, that the mer- 

 chants offered 20,000Z. as a reward for an available remedy. (Westwood, Mod, 

 Class. Ins. i. p. 158.) 



3 Within the last few years, a very minute yellow ant {Myrmica domestica 

 Shuckard) has become a great pest in many houses in Brighton, London, and 

 Liverpool ; in some cases to so great an extent as to cause the occupants to leave 

 them. Dr. Bostock was obh'ged to replace the floor of his kitchen, under which 

 they swarmed in incredible numbers, by a new one resting on tiles imbedded in 

 cement. ( Trans. Ent. Soc. Land. ii. 66. proc. li. lii. ; Sliuckard in Mag. Nat. 

 Hist. MS. ii. 626.) 



