ENEMIES OF GRAIN-MOTHS. 509 



field, the husks oi* shucks protectuig it from the moths, 

 which find only a few ears, whose ends protrude beyond 

 the husks, whereon to deposit their eggs. Hence some per- 

 sons recommend keeping corn in the husks, to preserve it 

 from the corn-moth and also from the corn-weevil. This 

 method is objectionable on account of the trouble it occa- 

 sions, and the increased bulk of the corn ; and it is less 

 sure than the means above described. 



Mr. Owen has made the interesting discovery, that the 

 larvai of the wdieat-moth are sometimes preyed upon by 

 still smaller larva), Avhich, having destroyed their victims, 

 are transformed to minute black ichneumon-flies. These 

 have not yet been obtained from any of the samples of 

 infected wheat or corn that have come under my notice ; 

 but, from the figures given of them by INIr. Owen in " The 

 Cultivator," for November, 184G, they appear evidently to 

 be Chalcidian parasites, and belong perhaps to the genus 

 Pteromalus. Of these parasitical flies he remarks, that 

 " some farmers had noticed lar<ie numbers amono; the tail- 

 ings of the winnowing machine." Where they prevail, they 

 doubtless contribute, in no small measure, to check the in- 

 crease of the moths. 



The Angoumois moth is unknown in England. Hence 

 specimens of the American insect, sent by me to my friend, 

 the late Mr. Edward Doubleday, of the British Museum, 

 in December, 1845, Avere not immediately recognized by 

 him and by Mr. Curtis, the celebrated English entomologist. 

 Afterwards, on consulting the work of Duponchel on the 

 Lepidoptera of France, they identifled my specimens as be- 

 longing to the Batalis cerealella, the true Angoumois cri'^hi- 

 moth, described and figured in that work. This identifi- 

 cation is the more interesting and satisfactory, from the 

 circumstance that I had not communicated to these gentle- 

 men my belief that the insects were the same, and had 

 given to them no account of the habits of my specimens, 

 being desirous of obtaining their opinion unbiased by my 



