166 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



naturally laid on coarse grasses, and I found, this season, that by selecting 

 Dactylodenium aegyptiacum the larvae fed more readily than before and 

 were healthy. 



Areolatus is common in Florida and Georgia, and has been taken by 

 Mr. E. M Aaron on the summit of one of the high mountains of East 

 Tennessee. 



CLOTHES MOTHS. 



BY PROF. C. H. FERNALD, STATE COLLEGE, ORONO, MAINE. 



Nearly a year ago my attention was especially called to the insects 

 which prey upon woolen fabrics, and which are generally known as 

 " clothes moths." In going over the literature of the subject at that time 

 and comparing it with the notes which I had made from time to time, I 

 became convinced that what we have in our books pertaining to these in- 

 sects is very imperfect and faulty, and that there was need of a thorough 

 revision. This held true, not only of the species which destroy clothing, 

 but also of many other species in the family Tineidcs. 



I therefore obtained, by purchase and otherwise, as large a collection 

 as possible from all parts of the United States — over twelve hundred 

 specimens — and sent them to Lord Walsingham, in England, for com- 

 parison with the European species. This collection has just been re- 

 turned to me, and the notes and descriptions which his lordship has made 

 on it will soon appear in the Trans. Am. Ent. Soc. 



From the studies thus far made it appears that such of the European 

 species as attack clothing have already been introduced irito this country, 

 and the probabilities are that we have no native species possessed of 

 similar habits. 



In 1841, Harris's Insects of Massachusetts appeared, in which a gen- 

 eral account of clothes moths was given, taken from Duponchel and other 

 European works, and including a brief description of a moth attacking 

 white flannel in the cases of the Boston Society of Natural History, which, 

 as he stated, agreed with the description of Tinea flavifrontella of the 

 older naturalists. Harris omitted to mention whether or not the larva of 

 this species made a case of the flannel in which it lived. Later editions 

 of Harris's work merely repeat the same thing. 



Dr. Packard, in his Guide to the Study of Insects, p. 346, described 



