Reports to various Correspondents . 99 



distributed over England and Scotland and to some extent Ireland. 

 It is found in North America and Canada, in Chili, Australia and all 

 over Europe. The larvae block up the machinery by their habit of 

 matting the flour or meal together with silk and forming when 

 mature cylindrical silken cocoons in which they pupate. The larvae 

 prefer flour and meal and bran, but will attack grain and most cereals. 

 It takes two months to complete its life-cycle in this country, but in 

 America it seems to develop more rapidly, thirty-eight days being 

 sufficient. Breeding keeps on all the year in mills — in well-heated 

 mills as many as six generations may occur. 



The only plan which is quite successful is fumigation of the 

 wJiole mill with bisulphide of carbon. It is best to get a chemist to 

 undertalce ibis, us the substance is poisonous and inflammable, and to 

 make a notification to the insurance company. Turning steam from 

 the engines over the walls, machinery, etc., has been found to be 

 beneficial, followed by whitewashing the walls and well scrubbing 

 down the floors, all damaged stuff being burnt previously. The 

 steam can of course easily be applied by means of a long hose. 

 Flour, of course, must be moved and tbe machinery examined, latter 

 to prevent rusting. Sulphur is not much good to use for fumigating 

 and spoils all flour. 



Cleanliness is said to prevent it ; so it does, but constant fresh 

 importations occur — coming in in sacks and bags used in the trans- 

 port of the flour. Sacks and bags should be cleansed in some easy 

 way, such as steeping in boiling water every time the pinkish white 

 larvae are noticed. It is almost necessary to shut down the mill for 

 a few days and have everything cleaned out and burnt and then 

 either apply the fumigation or steam. It is a troublesome and costly 

 pest to cope witli and half-hearted remedies are waste of time. 



Diseases of Wine Corks. 



Little or nothing is known of the insect or other animal enemies 

 of corks, and as will be seen by Mr. Massee's letter (p. 106), nothing 

 regarding the fungi which also attack them. An enquiry was sent to 

 the Museum concerning this subject from Dr. G, Newton Pitt, Renter 

 Warden of the Armourers' Company, as follows : — 



" I have been attempting, somewhat unsuccessfully, to learn 

 something about the disease of corks in bottles which leads to the 

 ullaging of wine. I presume the disease is due to the inroads 

 of the maggot of some beetle. I should be glad to learn (1) 

 what is the name of the creature, and also whether the corks are 



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