LEPIDOPTERA. 357 



passed by without further notice, were it not for the depredations 

 of certain species on some of our most valuable possessions. 

 Most of these pests are foreign insects, and have been introduced 

 into this country from abroad ; it will not, therefore, be in my 

 power to offer any thing absolutely new about them. Neverthe- 

 less, a few remarks on some of the most remarkable or destruc- 

 tive of these moths may not be wholly useless or unacceptable to 

 those persons for whom this treatise was particularly designed. 



The largest insects of this tribe belong to the group called 

 CrambiDjE, or Crambians, among which the bee-moth or wax- 

 moth is to be placed. This pernicious insect was well known 

 to the ancients, and we find it mentioned, under the name of 

 Tinea, in the works of Virgil and Columella,* old Roman writ- 

 ers on husbandry. In the winged state, the male and female 

 differ so much in size, color, and in the form of their fore-wings, 

 that they were supposed, by Linnaeus and by some other natural- 

 ists, to be different species, and accordingly received two differ- 

 ent names. f To avoid confusion, it will be best to adopt the 

 scientific name given to the bee-moth by Fabricius, who called 

 it Galleria cereana, that is, the wax Galleria, because, in its cat- 

 erpillar state, it eats beeswax. Doubtless it was first brought to 

 this country, with the common hive-bee, from Europe, where it 

 is very abundant, and does much mischief in hives. Very few 

 of the Tinea exceed or even equal it in size. In its perfect or 

 adult state it is a winged moth or miller, measuring, from the 

 head to the tip of the closed wings, from five eighths to three 

 quarters of an inch in length, and its wings expand from one 

 inch and one tenth to one inch and four tenths. The feelers are 

 two in number ; and the tongue is very short, and hardly visible. 

 The fore-wings shut together flatly on the top of the back, slope 

 steeply downwards at the sides, and are turned up at the end, 

 somewhat like the tail of a fowl. This resemblance probably 

 suggested the name of the genus, Galleria, which seems to have 

 been derived from the Latin word for a fowl. The male is of a 

 dusty gray color ; his fore-wings are more or less glossed and 



* Virgil. Georgic IV., line 246. Columella. Husbandry, Book IX. chap. 14. 

 t Tortrix cereana, the male ; Tinea mellonella, the female. 



