264 
Beetles 
and some whitish and so arranged as to give the back an irregularly spotted 
appearance- The hairy larvae burrow into the specimens and nibble away 
at the dry bodies. Their presence may be detected by a little pile of dust 
under the pinned-up specimen and by the falling off of its legs, head, etc. 
Pour a teaspoonful of carbon bisulphide into a corner of the case and 
keep it tightly shut for a day. The fumes of the CS 2 are fatal to the pests. 
The carpet-beetle or “ buffalo-moth” (Fig. 361) is another species, A.scrophu- 
laricB , of this same genus. The beetle is about T 3 ^ inch long, marbled black 
and white above with a central reddish line bearing short lateral offshoots 
on each side. The larva is thick, soft, active, and covered with stiff brown 
hairs. It feeds voraciously on carpets, working on the under side, and 
usually making long slits following the floor-cracks. The beetles are common 
outdoors on plants of the family Scrophulariaceae, but come indoors to lay 
their eggs. The remedy for the carpet-beetle is to use rugs instead of 
carpets, and to lift and shake these rugs often. Another member of this 
family attacking carpets is the black carpet-beetle, Attagenus piceus (Fig. 
362). The beetle is black, and the larva is longer, more slender, and lighter 
brown than the buffalo-moth, and has a conspicuous pencil or tuft of long 
hairs at the posterior tip of the body. The larder- or bacon-beetle, Dermestes 
lardarius (Fig. 363), is about -3- inch 
long, dark brown with a pale-yellowish 
band, containing six black dots across 
the upper half of the wing-covers. 
The larva is elongate, sparsely hairy, 
(After 
Fig. 363. Fig. 364. 
Fig. 363.—The larder-beetle, Dermestes lardarius, larva, pupa, and adult. 
Howard and Marlatt; much enlarged.) 
Fig. 364.—Larva of a water-penny beetle of the ParnidcB. (Four times natural 
size.) 
brown, and has two short curved spines on top of the last body-segment. 
It feeds on many kinds of animal substance, as ham, bacon, old cheese, 
hoofs, horn, skin, beeswax, feathers, hair, and also attacks museum specimens. 
Another family of Clavicornia which possesses a special interest is the 
Parnidae, or “water-pennies,” a family of forty species representing ten genera 
of small brown robust-bodied insects which live in water and yet do not 
