223 



increasing practice of cultivating an early crop — ^tobacco being thus 

 placed in the baling sheds twice a year with only a short interval 

 between the two occasions. The attraction exercised by light may 

 be used to ascertain if a warehouse is infested, and it was in one case 

 turned to account by keeping lamps burning throughout the night 

 in a shed where infested tobacco was stored, thus keeping the beetles 

 fi'om escaping through cracks or other openings to adjacent uninfested 

 sheds. Another method of detecting the beetles is by means of a 

 bowl containing a strong sugar solution. Experiment confirmed the 

 view that tobacco leaf is not attacked by the adult beetles. The 

 beetles used in this test lived 23 and 28 days on an average, while 

 those kept with, paper lived 31 days on an average, and those with 

 sugar 74 days. Immature larvae placed in a bottle half-full of white 

 sugar were alive 93 days later, but had not pupated. It is improbable 

 that L. serricorne attacks white sugar under normal circumstances, 

 for all attempts to infest, from the outside, sugar in a gunny bag failed. 



In the author's experiments a temperature varying from 23° to 

 32° F., over a period of 48 hours, was not sufficient to kill all stages 

 of L. serricorne. A period of 120 hours proved fatal to all stages, 

 except that 4 eggs survived the treatment together vnth. some larvae ; 

 the latter however died soon afterwards. Both eggs and larvae 

 should be able to resist a winter of not too great severity in HoUand. 

 Tobacco in the interior of the bales is seldom attacked, probably 

 because of the carbon dioxide, ammonia and other gases generated 

 there. 



The tobacco moth, though present for years as a pest of tobacco 

 in Besoeki, was first recognised to be a new pest in 1914 and was then 

 described [see this Review, Ser. A, iv, p. 81]. R. van Eecke identified 

 it as belonging to the genus Setotnorfha, and as a result of a careful 

 comparison with van Deventer's description of Setomorpha tineoides 

 the author finds it to be a new species, of which he here describes all 

 stages imdei* the name of Setoinorpha rnargalaeslriata. This Tineid 

 occurs in Java and Sumatra, being very common in the tobacco 

 districts of the former island. The adult oviposits a few days after 

 emerging and does not live more than a week. The eggs are laid 

 in crevices by a long ovipositor. From one female 143 eggs were 

 obtained. Incubation lasts 7-8 days. On hatching the small cater- 

 pillars begin feeding and spin loosely woven galleries under which 

 they conceal themselves. The outside of these galleries is covered 

 with black excreta or particles of the leaf-surface. The black excre- 

 ment characterises the injury done by S. margalaestriata, which also 

 usually avoids the larger leaf- nerves. The larval stage lasts about 

 3-5 weeks and the pupal about 2 weeks, the entire development of 

 one generation requiring about 1^2 months. Larvae fed on wool, 

 leather and old rags developed into normal adults, and in Java S. trmr- 

 galaestriata is a common clothes moth, as well as the allied species, 

 jS. tineoides. A third clothes moth. Tinea pellionella, is often found 

 in the effects of recent arrivals from Europe. S. margalaestriata was 

 also found in tobacco seed, coca, maize, stored sunflower seed and in 

 the seeds of some green manure plants. The preference for dark 

 hiding places shown by the moths is a factor in infestation. Moths 

 that had been disturbed were seen to fly up and then seek to enter 

 crevices along the seams of the matting of other bales. Sometimes 



