Fig. 12.—Leather covering at end of couch shown in [Figure 11], loosened to expose the work of the furniture carpet beetle. Note that this pest, working with fewer numbers of clothes moths and black carpet beetles, has eaten nearly all the curled hair stuffing, leaving behind the moss used with the hair, countless larval skins, and handfuls of a fine, gritty, dirtlike substance which is nothing more nor less than the frass of the insect. Thousands of carpet beetles can mature in such furniture without the knowledge of the casual observer. It is only when the stuffing is eaten away and the pests leave the furniture and crawl about the house that suspicion is centered upon furniture as the possible source of an unending supply of clothes moths and carpet beetles that appear here and there about the house.
Fig. 13.—Eggs of the furniture carpet beetle laid in the pile of a plush mohair covering of a chair. Considerably enlarged: the eggs are smaller than the head of a common pin and white In color.
The measures to be used for the control of carpet beetles depend upon the place in the house where the pest is causing injury. If carpet beetles are troublesome in trunks, chests, or closets that are not opened often, a good grade of flake naphthalene, paradichlorobenzene or camphor will give good results. If the trouble is in closets in daily use, beneath carpets or rugs, or in piano felts or upholstered furniture, these substances are of practically no value, and one must fumigate the house as a whole or in part with either hydrocyanic-acid gas, carbon disulphid, or carbon tetrachlorid, or use the still older, more tedious, and less effective means of control consisting in frequent search for and the killing of the individual larvæ and adults, and the treatment of floor cracks and similar hiding places with kerosene, gasoline, or benzine. The following materials and methods may be employed with satisfactory results: