THE ANGOUMOIS MOTH: ITS OPERATIONS. 



103 



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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. wTu 

 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. 



The insect was the Angoumois moth — so 

 named from the canton in France, where its 

 excessive ravages, over a century 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 Aludfa 

 cereaklla, it has been noticed by several of our 

 entomological writers, in later years, under the 

 name of Butalis cerealella, and still later, as 

 Gelcchia cerraMla. This latter genus of the Ti- 

 neida having been made the receptacle of a large 

 10 amount of mcongruous material, ■ more careful 

 study is withdrawing from it wrongly referred 

 species, and for the Angoumois moth, Heinemann, 

 in his Schmeitcrlinge Deutsch.-Schiceiz., in 1S70, 

 established the genus of Sitotroga. This genus 

 appears to be accepted by our authorities in the 

 TineidcB. 



Three of the moths were in the box received 

 from Geneva, when opened, and others continued 

 to emerge on following days. The piece 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- 

 Only nine of the cells were open, 

 showing that the occupants had barely com- 

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



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Fig. is— E.ir of corn showing ina tlip i-fA] 

 the woik of the Angoumois moth. "^ ^^^^ *'^^' 

 Sitotroga cerealella. 



