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HOUSEHOLD INSECTS 
BUFFALO MOTH OR CARPET BEETLE. 
Fig. 3. Different stages of Carpet Beetle and work of the larva. 
This insect seems to be fairly abundant in Minnesota. The form which 
is usually seen is about a quarter of an inch in length and bears transverse 
rows of long, brown hairs. From the rear end projects a bunch of longer 
bristles. It is in this larval stage that the insect does its injury. When 
the old-fashioned carpets were used, their chief delight was to eat out 
large pieces near the edges where they were nailed to the floor or to cut a 
slit in the carpet along a crack. Now that rugs are used more commonly, 
which can be taken up from the floor and cleaned at frequent intervals, these 
insects have been forced to attack other woolen material such as blankets 
and woolen garments which may be hung up in closets and left undisturbed 
during the summer, or which are packed away in trunks or drawers. The 
work in this case resembles very much that of the ordinary clothes moth. 
An examination, however, will show these hairy grubs in the folds of the 
