Beetles 
263 
produced annually in the latitude of Washington. The insect here hiber¬ 
nates in the adult state. 
The largest and most familiar of the outdoor Cucujids is a very flat 
bright-red species, Cucujus jiavipes (PI. II, Fig. n), about half an inch 
long, with black eyes and antennae and the legs with dark tibiae and feet. 
The Dermestidae constitute only a small family of forty or more North 
American species representing twelve genera, but one which nevertheless 
is of unusual interest and importance to entomologists, for to this family 
belong those insects which eat entomological collections. A depraved taste, 
but one which causes almost constant anxiety and occasional serious 
discouragement on the part of the industrious collector. Dermestids 
are not the bane of collectors and museum curators alone, as larder-beetles, 
“buffalo-moths,” and carpet-beetles, various species of this family, help 
make life a burden to the housewife. 
All of the Dermestidae are small, oval, and plump-bodied, the largest 
species being about J inch long, and most of them are covered with small 
scales, which give them their rather varied colors and markings. The beetles 
themselves mostly feed on pollen, but come into houses to deposit their eggs. 
From the eggs hatch soft-bodied little grubs thickly covered with hairs, 
often very long (Figs. 361 and 362). These larvae are the real pests of house- 
Fig. 361. Fig. 362. 
Fig. 361.—Carpet-beetle or “buffalo-moth,” Anthrenus scrophularia, larva and adult. 
(After Howard and Marlatt; much enlarged.) 
Fig. 362.—Black carpet-beetle, Attagenus piceus, larva and adult. (After Howard 
and Marlatt; enlarged.) 
hold and museum; they feed industriously on dried’ insect specimens, 
stuffed birds and mammals, woolen carpets, furs, feathers, or on meat and 
cheese (depending on the particular habits of the various species) until full- 
grown. Then they crawl into a crack or hide in the body of a museum 
specimen and pupate within the larval cuticle, which serves as a sort of thin 
hairy protecting shell. 
The usual museum pests are two species, A . varius and A . museorum, of 
the genus Anthrenus. The adult beetles are tiny, broadly oval, very convex, 
with the black body covered above with scales some of which are yellowish 
