THE ANCOUMOIS MOTH: ITS OPERATIONS. 



103 



Museum. Last night these moths came forth from the specimen sent 

 you. Dr. Sturtevant informs me that it has been present the past two 

 seasons at the station. As the specimen of corn 

 sent you shows, should the insect continue to in- 

 crease it must do an immense amount of damage 

 to the corn of this section in future years. Will 

 you please give me the name of the moth, and 

 something of its natural history; also in what 

 works are to be found the fullest accounts of it. 





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The insect was the Angoumois moth — so 

 named from the canton in France, where its 

 excessive ravages, over acentur}'- ago first brought 

 it into general notice. It has long been known 

 as an injurious grain insect in the .southern and 

 central portions of the United States, but fortu- 

 ®^ nately it has not proved very destructive in the 

 State of New York or in New England. Origin- 

 ally described by Olivier, in 1789, as Alucita 

 cerealella^ it has been noticed by several of our 

 entomological writers, in later years, under the 

 name of Butalis ccrcaldla, and still later, as 

 Gelechia ccrcaleUa. This latter genus of the Ti- 

 neidcB having been made the receptacle of a large 

 ^ amount of incongruous material, more careful 

 study is withdrawing from it wrongly referred 

 species, and for the Angoumois moth, Heinemann, 

 >_ eo\*-®J^^ in his Schmeilcrlinge Deuli^cli.-Sclnvciz., in 1870, 

 '^^^*Ly^ established the genus of Sitotroga. This genus 

 *" appears to be accepted by our authorities in thfe 

 l^ TincidcB. 



Three of the moths were in the box received 

 from Geneva, when opened, and others continued 

 to emerge on following days. The j)iece of corn, 

 about two inches long, contained eight rows, in 

 which were ninety-six kernels. Of these, sixty-four 

 (sixty-six per cent) contained cells of the insect, 

 as shown by the round smoothly-cut opening of 

 a size less than the head of an ordinary pin, 

 through which the moth had emerged, or by the 

 thin, nearly transparent hull of the kernel cover- 

 Fio.iR. — Ear of corn showing in e the cell. Oulv nine of the cells were open, 



the work of Uie Angoumois moth. o -> 



siTOTRooA CEREALELLA. showiiig that thc occupants had barely com- 



menced to emerge. The pupa-cases were left within the cell where 



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