The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1884-02-16
1Carpet- Bugs.o

-, - hHONH us IHe 'cdrpel-Dug or
pulialo pest" rejoices in the scientific
. name OF anthrenus scrophularie. Even
lhlS name, however, isn't so biz as its
appetite. Wooden fabrics are its favor
lite food, and its hunger is phenomenal
scientific men do not believe that it will
eat cotton or linen fabrics when there
Is anything wooden handy, and it has
never been charged with iniuring silk
Feathers frequently furnish it with a
dinner 1t is happiest when in its own
peaceful home beneath your parlor
carpet. 1t eats and eats the livelong
DAY, and you can't convince any house
keeper who ever waged war against it
with benzine, kerosene, Dalmatian
powder and tarred paper that it ever
sleeps or does anything but eat at
night. 1t goes soquietly about its work
that you haven't the faintest idea it is
boarding with you till you lift up you
carpet some day and find nothing but
bare threads on the under side. Unless
you are sophisticated you wonder what
in the mischief ever did that, for YOU
don't see anything of the carpet-bug.
The pesky pest is secretive and seclu-
siye in its nature, and when it sees an
outsider coming, it skips. As a skip
per, too, it is renowned. The agile
climex lectularius- which by any other
name wouldn't smell any sweeter
when you crush tor the lively flea
are nowhere in comparison with the
carpet bug. Their boats are sawed or
some one has hit them with a sand
bag and they can't row. The anthre-
nus scrophulari@ is the Hanlan. the
Jay-Eye-See. the Maud S. of bugocracy.
BY the time you have got the edge of
of your carpet lifted and peer under,
in the hope Of catching it in business
hours, it isn't there, Safe within the
secltlsion of some apparently impene-
trable crack it winks invisibly at you,
with its antenn9 placed in derisive
conjunction with its nose If on rare
occasions it doesn't know you are com
ing and gets belated, you can get some
idea how fast Lightning can streak it
when it is stored up in the legs of a buff
fa1o pest. Before you realize that you
have seen anything, his bugship is safe
within the nearest crack or crevice,
and you are left with a dizzy recollec-
ton of having seen a black line flash
across the floor. Even if by miracle
you get your finger on the ''critter"
and crush the life out of it, when you
lift your finger up you don't find it at
all a little heap of almost impalpa-
BILE dust and bad smell are ali that
remain.
The buffalo-bug comes in assorted
sizes, from the bigness of a pinhead to
that of q small fly. Its appetite, its
teeth and its digestive apparatus are
born full-grown. | once managed to
catch q dozen of the little pests and
corked them up in bottle under mi
croscope with lot OF carpet-shreds
They thriyed and grew. fat in captivity,
and the way the carpet-shreds disap-
peared was a caution. Seen through
the microscope their resemblance, as
far as hairiness and broad front 90, to a
buffalo plainly shows where. they got
one of their names. Their backs seem
to be composed of ridges running across
the body, and thickly set with coarse,
stiff hairs. Their color is black or a
very dark brown, and their legs are le-
gion. A more destructive snout than
that with which they are adorned could
hardly be imagined ''They live to
eat, " and they are admirably adapted
to fulfill their mission. They are prac-
tically all snout and stomach and
legs.
The carpet-bug increases with mar
velous rapidity. 1t does not trouble its
head-that is to say, its snout-with
Malthusian or i-Malthusian doc
trines. 1t obeys the Scriptural injunc-
ton to increase, and multiply, and
replenish the earth;' and it does it
with astonishing diligence. 1t takes up
its residence with you to-day without
thinking or asking your permission
and tomorrow the family genealogist
has material for a thick octave volume.
From the great-great-great down to the
little-little- little, the whole family is on
the continual verge of starvation. In a
week every wooden thing within its
reach is ruined.
In the neighborhood of Boston we
have had the pleasure of the carpet
bugs acquaintance for ten years, more
or less. Where it came from no one
really knows. 1t sprung, like Minerva,
ll-grown into life-snout, stomach,
legs and all.
What are you going to do about it?
That is the question no housekeeper
can adequately answer. The scrophu-
lous anthrenus dotes on insect-powder,
and ordinary bug-destroyers are to it as
a delight and the solace of its hungry
soul. 1t grows fat on corrosive-subli-
mate, and pepper is what it always eats
on its ice cream. Dalmatian powder is
mildly effective, and if you can get it
actually upon the pest, will prepare it
for the undertaken. The difficulty is to
hit the target. You have to be an aw-
fully good wing-shot. Benzine, or its
less dangerous brother, kerosene. are
the best remedies we have at our COM
mand. Saturate the floors and fill the
crevices with the inhammable, ill
smelling fluid, and the carpet-bugs get
discouraged. The only difficulty is
that you get discouraged, too. Few
people like to live in an atmosphere of
benzine. 1t may be wholesome and
cleansing, but it is not agreeable.
When the insurance agent calls, and
shifts and shifts, you realize more than
ever its disadvantages. Still, when
offered an alternative of carpet bugs or
benzine, the weary housekeeper quickly
comes to decision. As a preventive
of attack, sixteen-inch strips of coal