British Species of the Genus Gelechia of Zeller. 107 



Sp. 89. Cerealella. 



Alucita cerealella, Encycl. Method., Entom. torn. i. p. 121, 

 No. 15. 



Butalis cerealella, D. Supp. p. 444, pi. 85, fig. 3. 



CEcophora granella, Latr. 



*G. Pyrophagella, Kollar in lit., Z. in lit. 



Expansion of wings 6| lines. 



Head pale ochreous ; palpi concolorous, with the extreme tip 

 fuscous ; antennas luteous. Anterior wings narrow, acute, deep 

 ochreous or luteous, with brownish atoms at the apex and on the 

 cilia. Posterior wings narrow, with long, acute apex, greyish, 

 with a luteous tinge, especially on the cilia. Posterior legs and 

 tarsi pale luteous. 



I have one specimen taken by myself many years since, but I 

 have no record of the locality. 



In France this Tinea has proved very destructive to corn ; 

 wheat, barley and rye being indiscriminately attacked by it. 

 Duponchel (loc. cit.), quoting from the Memoirs of Reaumur, 

 Duhamel-Dumonceau and Tillet on its natural history, inform 

 us that the female lays her eggs on the grains of these three 

 kinds of corn before they are ripe. Six or seven days afterwards 

 the caterpillars appear, being hardly as thick as a hair, and each 

 one attacks a grain, introducing itself into it by a hole so small 

 that it is not visible to the naked eye. Here it lives, taking care 

 not to break the husk of the grain, so that the affected seeds can- 

 not be distinguished from the sound except by putting into water, 

 when the former swim and the latter sink. When arrived at 

 perfection, the caterpillar, still within the grain that has afforded 

 it food, spins a cocoon of white silk, having first taken the pre- 

 caution to gnaw one of the ends in such a manner as to form a 

 kind of operculum, which readily yields to the efforts of the moth 

 to escape from its prison. This escape usually takes place after 

 the corn is thrashed and laid up in granaries, but specimens some- 

 times appear before this is accomplished. 



Several methods for preventing or diminishing the ravages of 

 this Tinea have been suggested, the principal being exposure in 

 machines to heat or carbonic gas. In the former it was found 

 that corn would germinate after exposure to a temperature of 

 70 degrees, Reaumur, and that a higher temperature, 76 to 96 

 degrees, for a short period, was less effectual in accomplishing 

 the destruction of the larvae than a lower one, 45 to 50 degrees, 

 continued for a longer time. In the other method the corn has 

 been found not to be deteriorated for making bread, nor to have 

 lost the power of germinating. 



