22 
as we have specimens in the National Museum from there. Dr. Horn 
writes under date of December 5, 1895, that he has sternale "from all 
over the United States." It is evidently a comparatively new intro- 
duction in Washington, for had it occurred in any numbers in previous 
years it could not well have escaped recognition by the members of 
this Division on their visits to our museums. 
Until my discovery of this species only T. tarsale had been noticed 
in any abundance in our agricultural museum, but judging from pres- 
ent experience it seems perfectly capable of holding its own with other 
cabinet pests, if, indeed, it does not supplant some of them. 
The jars which were preserved represent samples from different glass 
columns, each of which contained several bushels of material. One 
jar of linseed contained both species of Trogoderma, but another was 
infested exclusively by the new species. The castor beans contained 
both species, but the clover seed only the new form. 
Anthrenus verbasci Linn. 
There are at least two published notices of this, another of our com- 
mon insect cabinet pests, attacking vegetable substances — that already 
referred to, in Vol. VII of Insect Life, p. 32, wherein Mr. V. L. Kellogg 
remarks u attacking powdered cramp bark {Viburnum prunifolium)," 
and another earlier notice in Field and Forest (Vol. II, p. 184, 1877), 
by Mr. 0. E. Dodge, of this Department. Shed skins of Anthrenus 
(species not stated, but undoubtedly verbasci) were found in an insect 
box in which " nearly all the labels had been deeply notched and eaten 
on all sides." Mr. Dodge was in doubt as to whether the insect had 
fed upon the paper from choice or from lack of other food. 
Specimens of both larva? and adults were received in the spring of 
1895 from a lot of " middlings" in which were found Attagenus larvae, 
but no significance was attached to this finding until a large number 
of the larvae were discovered in spoiled flour from a local bakery. 
The experience of the two writers above quoted indicates merely the 
ability of the larva to injure vegetal substances. August 6, it being 
unfortunately too late to rear the insect from the egg^ a number of 
immature larvae were collected in the damaged flour and transferred 
to a jar containing fresh flour that had been disinfected for the pur- 
pose. Here they at once made themselves at home, and in five weeks' 
time a notable increase in growth was observable. One of the smallest 
individuals, measuring when first isolated 1.8 mm., showed an increase 
of nearly double its length in this time. 
During September many larvae of this species were found together 
with Trogoderma tarsale living in peanuts and in meal, flour, and cakes 
prepared from them and from peanut oil. In the following month other 
larvae were found in the same bag of hard seed wheat mentioned as 
harboring T. tarsale. 
In February, 1896, 1 received from Mrs. E. C. Jones, Brooklyn, IS, Y., 
