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TJic Country Gcntlcivovian 



vantage of celerity is counterbalanced by the 

 injury done to the blades, which, in one year, 

 will be as much worn away as knives that had 

 been in use for many years, and cleaned in 

 the usual way. 



When knives and forks have been cleaned, 

 either on the board or by the machine, they 

 must be wiped with the knife-cloth. The 

 handles of knives and forks require attention, 

 few things being more disagreeable than to 

 feel the handles gritty or greasy. 



Ivory handles should be washed with a bit 

 of sponge dipped in soap and water, or with 

 a little spirits of wine and water ; when a red 



wine or a fruit stainj shews itself on the 

 handles, it may be scraped off with a sharp 

 knife without injuring the haft. 



Silver and plated handles are cleaned like 

 other plate and plated wares. 



Ebony hafts should be cleaned with a little 

 Florence oil, carefully wiped off 



Knives and forks always, after being used, 

 should have the blades and prongs dipped 

 in warm water, to wash away whatever may 

 adhere to them; afterwards they must be 

 wiped very dry and put into the box to be 

 most thoroughly cleaned on the board or 

 machine. 



THE CLOTHES-MOTH. 



THE following account of this well-known 

 plague of the careful housewife is con- 

 densed from an interesting article by Dr 

 Packard, in a recent number of the "American 

 Naturalist," a periodical that we can most 

 cordially recommend to our readers : — 



" For over a fortnight we once enjoyed the 

 company of the caterpillar of a common 

 clothes-moth. It is a little pale, delicate 

 worm, about the size of a darning needle, not 

 half-an-inch long, with sixteen feet, the first 

 six of them well developed, and constantly 

 in use to draw the slender body in and out 

 of its case. Its head is armed with a for- 

 midable pair of jaws, with which, like a scythe, 

 it mows its way through thick and thin. 



" But the case is the most remarkable feature 

 in the history of this caterpillar. Hardly has 

 the helpless, tiny worm broken the egg, pre- 

 viously laid in some old garment or fur, or 

 wool, or perhaps in the hair-cloth of a sofa, 

 when it proceeds to make a shelter by cutting 

 the woolly fibres or soft hairs up into bits, 

 which it places at each end in successive 

 layers, and, joining them together by silken 

 threads, constructs a cylindrical tube of thick, 

 warm felt, lined within with the finest silk 

 the tiny worm can spin. The case before 

 us is of stone-grey colour, with a black stripe 

 along the middle, and with rings of the same 



colour round each opening at the ends. 

 Had the caterpillar fed on blue or yellow 

 cloth, the case would, of course, have been 

 of those colours. 



" Days go by. A vigorous course of dieting 

 on its feast of wool has given stature to our 

 hero. His case has grown uncomfortably 

 small. Shall he leave it and take another ? 

 No housewife is more prudent and saving. 

 Out come those scissor-jaws, and lo ! a fear- 

 ful rent along each side of one end of the 

 case. Two wedge-shajDed patches mend the 

 breach, caterpillar retires for a moment ; re- 

 appears at the other end ; scissors once more 

 pulled out ; two rents to be filled up by two 

 more patches or gores, and our caterpillar 

 once more breathes freer, laughs and grows 

 fat upon horse hair and lamb's wool. In this 

 way he enlarges his case till he stops grow- 

 ing. 



" Our caterpillar seeming to be full-grown, 

 and hence out of employment, we - cut the 

 end of his case half off". Two or three days 

 after, he had mended it from the inside, 

 drawing the two edges together by silken 

 threads, and though he had not touched the 

 outside, yet so neatly were the two parts 

 joined together that we had to search for 

 some time with a lens to find the scar. 



"To keep our friend busy during the cold, 



