6o LEPIDOPTRRA. 



brown in colour, the liead darker brown. In a whitish 

 silken hammock a little longer than itself. (W. Buckler.)' 

 The larva forms this cocoon usually in the late autumn, and 

 lies therein unchanged till ^larch or April. 



This is almost the most abundant and most universally 

 distributed of our warehouse-frequenting moths, and is not 

 by any means of recent introduction. It has been well 

 known here for as long as any notice has been taken of our 

 smaller lepidoptera — indeed two or three of its varieties 

 were described by Haworth (1803) as distinct species. It 

 not only abounds along with the species already noticed, but 

 is often plentiful in every grocer's store in town and country, 

 finding its way occasionally into every private house, there 

 to be seen late in the evening flying backwards and forwards 

 about the rooms, and passing itself off as a rather large 

 "clothes-moth." Often it increases in numbers in a ware- 

 house in which goods are long stored so as to become a 

 destructive pest. In August, 1876, in a large room in a 

 warehouse in York, which was in great part filled with 

 chicory-root, the surface of the heap was found to be covered 

 by a great sheet of web, the residence of thousands of these 

 larvffi. This web was so closely spun together as to resemble 

 fine soft kid, and so substantial that it was exhibited in 

 London. This insect is abundant in suitable places throughout 

 England and Ireland, and doubtless Wales, though my only 

 records are at Pembroke and Pembroke Dock ; apparently 

 rare in Scotland, and Mr. A. A. Dalgleish records the occur- 

 rence of ont specimen in Glasgow ! Abroad it is common all 

 over the continent of Europe ; Palestine, and Western Asia ; 

 Madeira, the Canaries, Madagascar, and South Africa ; and 

 in North and South America, and Australia. 



6. E. semirufa, Stninton. — Expanse f inch (18-19 mm.). 

 Fore wings rather broad from the base, drab or yellow-drab,^ 

 shaded with red-grey ; lines black-brown, oblique. Hind 

 wings shining whitish-brown. 



