7 — 



The Angoumois Grain Moth, 



(Gelechia cereal lei la Oliv.) 



This insect is one of the pests which attack stored grain, 

 especially wheat and corn. It is a most formidable pest in the 

 South, but its injuries are less severe as we go north. It has 

 been reported to us this winter from several places in Kansas, 

 and it may come to be, if it is not already, a serious pest in Kansas 

 granaries and bins. In the South there are as many as eight 

 generations in a year ; in Massachusetts there are but two, 

 according to Harris. In Kansas probably four or five broods 

 are produced in a year. Because of this rapid multiplication 



the insect may do much damage in a short time. 



The adult insect is a small moth about one-fourth of an inch 

 in length from head to tips of closed wings, and about one-half 

 an inch from tip to tip of expanded wings. 



It is not, of course, in the adult or moth stage that the 

 insect commits its depredations, and the presence of the pest 

 will be more readily determined by an examination of the grain 

 kernels for larval or pupal forms than by a search for the moths. 

 In infested grain many kernels will be found each having a small 

 but conspicuous hole. Many kernels may be attacked, however, 

 which do not show these holes. Some of the suspected grain 

 should be thrown into water, when the infested kernels will float. 

 The inside starchy portion of the kernels has been eaten away 

 by the "grub" or larva, leaving only a shell of greater or less 

 thickness. Mr. F. M. Webster in the appendix to the twelfth 

 report of the Illinois State Entomologist (1882), and Mr. H. E. 

 Weed in Bulletin No. 17 of the Mississippi Agricultural and 

 Mechanical College, Experiment Station, have discussed the 

 life history and habits of the pest, and to these reports we are 

 indebted for information. 



The moths fly about at night, lay their eggs either on the 



