INSECT PESTS OF THE HOUSE. 335 



pel the moths. In more than one case it was found that clothes 

 belonging to men using no tobacco were free from the attacks of 

 moths, while in the pockets of -those who smoked constantly were 

 found both eggs and larvae mixed with bits of tobacco, the gar- 

 ments having been eaten in various places. Of course, this is not 

 an absolute proof of the inefficacy of tobacco, as there may have 

 been other causes of attraction, and fresh, clean tobacco may, after 

 all, be found effectual. 



The larvae or the eggs can be killed by putting the article in 

 which they are found in a tightly closed vessel, and plunging it 

 for a short time into boiling water, or it can be placed in an oven 

 heated to a temperature of 150° Fahr. 



It is hardly necessary to describe the moth, which, although 

 so small, is easily recognized as an enemy by most housewives, 

 though in many cases little moths of various species attracted to 

 our rooms by the lamp-light in the evening are often mistaken 

 for the clothes-moth and destroyed. It may be well to state that 

 the clothes-moth rarely flits about the light. 



Soon after the moth issues from the cocoon the female finds its 

 way to the substance suitable for food for its young, and upon this 

 material it lays fifty or more eggs. In about a week the egg is 

 hatched, and almost immediately the worm begins to eat, and not 

 only uses for food the fibers of the article upon which the egg was 

 laid, but also makes of the material a covering for itself — a little 

 tube in which it lives, spinning for a lining the softest silk, which 

 it emits from glands in the head. From time to time, as the little 

 worm grows, it enlarges its case, either by adding to the ends or 

 by cutting with its sharp jaws little slits in the sides of the case, 

 filling in the space between the edges with the substance nearest 

 at hand, forming a neat patch. Not content with eating and 

 making a shelter for itself of the cloth upon which it lives, the 

 little worm cuts through the cloth as it makes its way in various 

 directions, dragging its case after it. If the case is torn from it, 

 or in any way injured, it soon makes a new one or patches the old. 

 After a while, at the approach of warm weather, the little worm 

 closes the ends of its case and changes to a pupa or chrysalis, 

 and in two or three weeks the moth appears. 



Buffalo-Bug (Anthrenus scrophularice). — Within fifteen or 

 twenty years there has appeared a new addition to the already 

 long list of injurious insects introduced into this country from 

 Europe. Although called a bug, which is the name commonly 

 applied to all insects having inconspicuous wings, it is in reality 

 a beetle, and why the name buffalo is applied is not known for a 

 certainty ; some say it was first noticed in this country in the city 

 of Buffalo, New York, while one writer says it was named from 

 its fancied resemblance to a buffalo. Whatever may be the 



