168 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Tinea tapetzella, Linn. Sy sterna Natures, loth ed., vol. I., p. 536, 

 1758. The alar expanse of this insect is about 18 m. m. Head and face 

 white. The wings black from the base to the middle and white beyond, 

 the black color extending out a little further on the costa than on the 

 hinder margin. The white of the outer portion of the wing is more or less 

 clouded with dark gray, and there is a small black spot at the anal angle, 

 and two or three at the apex of the wing. Hind wings pale gray. This 

 species is apparently quite rare in this country. The larva in Europe feeds 

 on animal matters, pelts, felts, carpets and also on dried plant substances, 

 forming a gallery of the substance on which it occurs, thus destroying 

 much more than it eats. 



In 1776 Denis and Schiffermiller published a catalogue of the insects 

 in the Royal Museum in Vienna, giving very brief descriptions of the 

 species, one of which they called Tinea flavifrontella, and their descrip- 

 tion was as follows : " Shining gray moth with yellowish head. Larva 

 unknown." The type in the Vienna collection was long ago destroyed, 

 and from this meagre description it is now impossible to tell what the in- 

 sect is. Fabricius next used the name in his Entomologia Systematica, 

 Vol. 3, part 2, p. 305, (1794), for an insect in the collection of Bosc, and 

 states that the larva feeds on insects and feathers, but it is not certain that 

 he ever saw the type in the Vienna collection, if, indeed, it was even then 

 in existence. 



In 1801, Illiger issued a second edition of the Vienna catalogue, and 

 gives not only what is in the original edition, but adds the description by 

 Fabricius, which may not pertain to the Vienna moth at all. In 1821 

 Charpentier published the notes which he made on an examination of the 

 insects in the Vienna collection, and states that the type of Tinea flavi- 



fronttUa was not in the collection, but at what time it was destroyed I am 

 notable to learn. In 1833 Treitschke published the description of a 

 moth under the same name, giving the credit to the Vienna catalogue, but 

 it is quite certain that he did not know the original type of Tinea flavi- 



frontella for it had disappeared long before he made his studies on the 

 microlepidoptera. 



In 1823, Hummel described a clothes-destroying moth, under the name 

 of Ti7iea biseilieila, which was, without much doubt, identical with the 

 species described by Fabricius, Hubner and Treitschke, but as they had 

 used the name given in the Vienna catalogue for an unknown and per- 



