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a box of cayenne pepper infested with both the drug-store beetle 
(Sitodrepa panicea), which, as is well known, frequently lives in this 
condiment, and this Anthrenus. In April it was also found at this 
Department in different exhibits of red pepper, no other species being 
present. As we have previously recorded a similar occurrence of this 
Anthrenus in red pepper in which it was associated with an Ephestia 
(Insect Life, Vol. IV, p. 332), it is not presumptive to say that it. as 
well as Trogoderma, will feed upon this substance. 
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 
Duriug the spring and summer of 1896 all the species mentioned in 
this paper have come to my notice again and again in farinaceous 
products, but sufficient has been said to establish these insects as her- 
bivorous in their nature and I will forbear further mention of occurrences 
for the present. I have been somewhat particular as to details regard- 
ing the actual feeding habits of the different species, as it is a matter 
requiring caution. Had anyone told me two years ago that Attagenus 
piceus fed upon flour and meal, that Trogoderma tarsals reveled in fiery 
red pepper, and that another species ciuld thrive on such laxative sub- 
stances as castor beans and flaxseed I would have believed my inform- 
ant guilty of romancing. 
The change from a natural animal-feeding habit to a vegetable one 
must be attributed to altered environment. In tbe case of Attagenus 
piceus the insect might have been carried originally into granaries, 
barns, and mills upon hides and skins and upon bags and have been 
thus attracted by the dead bodies of Sitotroga, Calandra, and other 
grain insects, and when this preferred food became scarce the most 
available substitute, viz, flour and meal and the powdered grain result- 
ing from the attacks of the grain feeders, was eaten. The presence of 
Anthrenus in flour may be explained in a similar manner, but not so 
the Trogoderma in oil seeds. There was positively no trace of other 
insects in the red pepper, in the castor beans, and flaxseed, and these 
attacks admit of no other explanation than that of an absence of more 
suitable food and show a wondrous adaptability to unnatural surround- 
ings. Assuming that the carnivorous habit is the natural one, the 
herbivorous taste must have been gradually acquired and that many 
years ago. 
A few words are due concerning the economic phase of the question. 
Let us first consider, for the sake of contrast, the life economy of a 
seriously injurious grain-feeding species, for example, Ephestia kueh- 
niella. A single female deposits from 300 to 360 eggs, and in a climate 
as far north as our own there may be as many as six broods each year. 
The larva is practically restricted to flour and meal for subsistence. 
Every year we hear of the enormous losses occasioned through this 
insect's ravages. On the other hand the female dermestid is not known 
to be especially prolific; probably does not lay-more than 50 or 60 6gg& 
