Medical library and historical journal . larlyabundant in roots, such as orris and flag, andsometimes infests cantharides. It is recorded to have established a colony in ahuman skeleton which had been dried with theligaments left on, and the writer has seen speci-mens taken from a mummy. It has even beensaid to perforate tin foil and sheet lead, and thatit will eat anything except cast iron. In short,a whole chapter could be devoted to the foodmaterial of this insect, as nothing seems to comeamiss to it and its voracious larvae. The subjectmay conclude with the statement that this Divi-sion ha
Medical library and historical journal . larlyabundant in roots, such as orris and flag, andsometimes infests cantharides. It is recorded to have established a colony in ahuman skeleton which had been dried with theligaments left on, and the writer has seen speci-mens taken from a mummy. It has even beensaid to perforate tin foil and sheet lead, and thatit will eat anything except cast iron. In short,a whole chapter could be devoted to the foodmaterial of this insect, as nothing seems to comeamiss to it and its voracious larvae. The subjectmay conclude with the statement that this Divi-sion has received complaints from four differentcorrespondents of injury to gun wadding, and there are several recordsof injury to boots and shoes and sheet cork. The larvae bore into hard substances like roots, tunneling them in everydirection, and feed also upon the powder which soon forms and is castout of their burrows. In powdery substances the larvae form little roundballs or cells, which become cocoons, in which they undergo transforma-. FlG. 62.—Sitodrepapanicta:Head of larva, shownabove; leg of larva below—much enlarged. (FromChittenden. U. S. Agriculture.) THE BOOK-WORM. 23 ticii to \)u\\:c and tlun {o the adiill insect. 1 have reared llie insect fromti:,^ to heetle in twu months, and as it hahitually lives in artificially heatedbnildiiiKS and breeds out Ihrou^jh the winter months, there may he at leastfour broods in a moderately warm attnosphcre. I imisl confess to a certain dcji^rcc of scepticism conccrnin^^the story of the string and the worm-hole, contained in Mr. Chit-tendens excellent description of the Sitodrepa panicea. It seemsto justify Mr. Bowdens allusion to the sea-serpent. In the ab-sence of any knowledge to the contrary, and in view of the scien-tific source from which the statement is derived, I am compelledto admit that the tunnel above described might have been madeby Pfinus fur, but I am positive that it could never have beenachieved by the onl
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