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insidious pests ? It may as well be said at once that this we shall 

 never do ; we have created circumstances that are favourable to them 

 and they are not likely to desert us; at best we can but mitigate 

 their attacks. We may liberally besprinkle our clothes with 

 camphor, naphthaline or other noxious drugs when we put them 

 away, much to the annoyance of our friends' olfactory nerves when 

 we take them into wear again, and think we are secure, but even 

 this is open to doubt. But we may do much to mitigate their 

 ravages, possibly prevent them, simply by continually worrying 

 them. We have noted their secretive habits, their love of hiding 

 themselves ; in this lays our greatest defence. Never leave your 

 clothes packed away for long periods ; take them out, shake them, 

 beat them, give them sun and air; you need then have little fear of 

 the depredations of the clothes-motlis. 



There are two species to which I must refer while considering 

 the household group, species that have raised perhaps more con- 

 troversy as to whether they should be regarded as household pests 

 or not, than any others. 



Emlrosis lactella, Schiff., {^fenestrella, Stainton), non Scop., "The 

 White-shouldered House Moth" (Durrant). You have no doubt 

 all frequently seen that pretty little mottled grey moth with a very 

 white head, and in size about two thirds of an inch in expanse of 

 its wings when it spreads them, sitting on the window, or found 

 it drowned and floating in the milk jug. From these habits it has 

 also been variously called the " Window-Moth " and the " Milk 

 Moth." Or when you have seen it resting on the wall, I have no 

 doubt you have said " kill that wretched clothes-moth." But it is 

 not really a clothes moth, at any rate in the sense that it has 

 anything to do with the species that we have already referred to 

 under that name. It has none of their secretive habits, it advertises 

 itself far too well, by its way of sitting about in full view in our houses 

 and on tree-trunks in the woods, to claim any very close relationship 

 with them. It is naturally a vegetable feeder, and in the wilds 

 probably picks up a living on the bark of trees, seeds and thatch 

 and any dry refuse that comes in its way, but in our houses it has 

 acquired habits that are decidedly objectionable. I know of no 

 definite record of its having attacked clothes, but it revels in almost 

 any dry goods such as dried peas, etc., and to the entomologist it is 

 a perfect pest ; if it gets into his breeding cages it makes no bones 

 of boring right through his pupae and killing them wholesale. It 

 is also apparently capable of doing a good deal of damage as the 

 following incident tends to show. 



Many years ago I laid down some port wine in a cellar where 

 the temperature was liable to more fluctuation than was thought 

 to be good for the wine, and to overcome this the bottles were packed 

 in sawdust which covered them up practically to the corks. After 

 several years, during which the whole thing had remained untouched, 



