Pyialfidae 
seems to defy attempts to eradicate it. Each female lays from 
six to seven hundred eggs, and the process of generation seems, 
where buildings are warm, to go on continuously. Moving and 
airing the wheat does no good, as the insect seems to multiply 
in the pipes in which flour is transported in a mill from one place 
to another by air-pressure. Much damage is done by the habit 
which the larvae pos¬ 
sess of gnawing the 
fine gauze of the 
screens in a flour¬ 
mill. 
When the insect 
has once established 
itself in an elevator or 
mill, the only remedy 
appears to be to shut 
down, and thorough¬ 
ly clean the place from 
top to bottom, and 
keep shut down and 
go on cleaning until 
not a nook or cranny 
is known to harbor 
the larvae, cocoons, _or 
moths. The accom¬ 
panying illustrations, 
which are taken from the pages of “Insect Life,” Vol. II, will 
enable the student to recognize this creature in its various stages 
of development. 
Thus far it has not become universally distributed throughout 
the country, but it has appeared in alarming numbers in some 
parts of Canada and New England. In England, Germany, and 
Belgium its attacks have been the subject of frequent comment. 
It shares an unenviable reputation with another species of the 
same genus, which we shall presently speak of, and with a spe* 
cies of Plodia, of which we shall also have something to say. 
“ Bee to the blossom, moth to the flame; 
Each to his passion ; what’s in a name? ” 
Helen Hunt Jackson. — Vanity of Vanities. 
413 
Fig. 233. —a , Enlarged view of cocoon of Flour- 
moth from below, showing pupa through thin silk 
which was attached to a beam, b, Cocoon viewed 
from above, with meal clinging to it. (After Riley, 
“ Insect Life,” Vol. II, p. 167.) 
