84 



to be found, and in many of them it was simply swarming. The 

 larva lives in a flimsy silken tube which it constructs on beams and 

 in odd corners where the flour settles, and when the flour is 

 stored in sacks the tubes are placed just against the inside of the 

 material of which the sack is constructed, the damage to the flour 

 being caused by these silken tubes becoming mixed with it and thus 

 making it stringy and unfit for human food. 



To deal with such a formidable enemy might well seem a hope- 

 less task, especially as it appeared to have no set time for coming 

 to maturity, brood succeeding brood, the length of time occupied in 

 feeding up depending simply upon the temperature of the building 

 in which it was situated. But after many experiments, such as 

 fumigation of buildings and so forth, had been tried with more or 

 less satisfactory results, it was found that nothmg was so successful 

 as strict cleanliness. By frequently sweeping down all beams, 

 walls, floors, etc., and destroying all sweepings, and by not allowing 

 used sacks to accumulate without thorough cleansing, the pest has 

 been got well in hand and stringy flour is much less frequently 

 met with now than it was a few years ago. ]t is also kept in check 

 by an Ichneumon and a Braconid which are parasitic upon its 

 larvae. 



The other members of the genus feed chiefly on dried fruits, and 

 it is quite probable that when you unwittingly eat " that maggoty 

 fig" you are devouring one of them. Thus E. calidella, Gn. 

 ( = /ice//a,Dougl.),has been bred from figs, currants, raisins, almonds, 

 and even cork; K. ficulelUi, Barr., from figs, cotton-seed cake, and oil 

 cake; K. caJtlritella, Z. ( = /<(^fs.s(^<'/Zrt, Barr.), from various dried fruits, 

 locust- beans, cotton-seed-cake, malt, and even chocolate ; and E. 

 elutella, Hb. (^sewinifa, Hw., —roxbuighii, Gregson), from almost 

 any dried vegetable substance, including the before mentioned as 

 well as corn, dog biscuits, nuts, capsicum, and turkey-rhubarb, and 

 there is reason to believe that at times it feeds in multitudes on the 

 seed of grasses in hay-ricks. The nearly allied Plodia interpiiuctella, 

 Hb., also feeds on similar substances, as well as on dried walnuts, 

 carraway-seeds, and yeast-cakes, and is not above devouring dried 

 insects, while Myelois ceratoniae, Z. {=pr!/ereUa, Vaughan), thrives 

 on locust-beans, dried figs, almonds, chestnuts, etc. All these 

 species damage the substances on which they feed, not only by what 

 they actually eat and the frass that they leave behind, but also by 

 the amount of silky material spun by them in their eftbrts at con- 

 cealment. They are none of them always very common in this 

 country, but where goods are stored for a long time they may easily 

 become so. 



The Gallerias are a small group of rather obscure species, of 

 which five only occur in this country, all of them more or less 

 destructive in their habits. Of these Meliphora (jrisella, Fab. ( = 

 alvearia, Fab.), known, I believe, as the ** Hive Moth," may be seen 



