CARPET BEETLES, or so-called "buffalo moths,"are common household pests usually associatedin their destructive work with clothes moths. Ordinarilythey are not so destructive as clothes moths,because they reproduce only once a year, and thennot so abundantly.

Experienced housewives throughout the North arefamiliar with the stout, oval, reddish-brown, hairygrubs or larvæ of the common carpet beetle, foundbeneath carpets or in clothing. In southern homes,however, the longer, slender, golden-brown larva ofthe black carpet beetle, with its tuft of goldenbristles, is more common.

All carpet-beetle larvæ feed upon fabrics or uponvarious articles, including upholstered furniture,containing wool, silk, hair, fur, bristles, or feathers.They even feed upon dried animal matter.

Protection against carpet beetles can be securedin tight chests and trunks by the use of the crystalsof naphthalene, paradichlorobenzene, or camphor,or by the fumigants carbon disulphid and carbontetrachloride Where infestation is general throughouta house or is serious in closets, it may be advisableto fumigate with hydrocyanic-acid gas, carbondisulphid, or sulphur, but none of these fumigationmethods should be employed except by a person wellinformed regarding them. The foregoing remediesand others, such as cold storage, red-cedar chests,heat, and the treatment of infested floor cracks, arediscussed in this bulletin.