.366 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



actions" of the Society, and were followed by some remarks on 

 the subject by " the Committee of Husbandry." It is highly prob- 

 able that this fly-weevil is no other than the destructive Angou- 

 mois grain-moth ; for Colonel Carter's account of it, though de- 

 ficient in some particulars, agrees essentially with what has been 

 published respecting the European insect. Mr. E. C. Herrick 

 has recently sent to me, from New Haven, Connecticut, some 

 wheat, that has been eaten by moths precisely in the same way 

 as grain is attacked by the Angoumois grain-moth ; and a gentle- 

 man to whom this moth-eaten wheat was shown, informed me that 

 he had seen grain thus affected in Maine. Unfortunately the in- 

 sects contained in this wheat were dead when received, having 

 perished in the chrysalis state; had they lived to finish their trans- 

 formations, I have good reason to think that they would have 

 proved to be identical with the Angoumois moths. The follow- 

 ing particulars respecting the latter are chiefly gathered from 

 Reaumur's " Memoires," and from a work by Duhamel du Mon- 

 ceau and Tillet, * who were commissioned by the Academy of 

 Sciences of Paris, in the year 1760, to inquire into the nature of 

 the insect, on account of its ravages in Angoumois, a part of 

 France where it had long been known, and had multiplied to an 

 alarming extent. The Angoumois moth, or Anacampsis cercal- 

 ella, in its perfected state, is a four-winged insect, about three 

 eighths of an inch long, when its wings are shut. It has a pair of 

 tapering curved feelers, turned over its head. Its upper wings 

 are narrow, of a light brown color, without spots, and have the 

 lustre of satin ; they cover the body horizontally above, but droop 

 a little at the sides. The lower wings and the rest of the body 

 are ash-colored. This moth lays its eggs, which vary in number 

 from sixty to ninety, in clusters, on the ears of wheat, rye, and 

 barley, most often while these plants are growing in the field, and 

 the ears are young and tender ; sometimes also on stored grain in 

 the autumn. Hence it appears that they breed twice a year; the 

 insects from the eggs laid in the early part of summer, coming to 



*"Histoire d'un Insectc qui devore les grains de l'Angoumois." 12mo. Paris. 

 1762. See also " Histoire dc l'Academie Royale des Sciences," Annee 1761, p. 

 66, and " Memoires," p. 289, 4to. Paris, 1763. 



