Tineidae 



more hours to the fumes of carbon bisulphide. This fluid should 

 be placed in large quantity in shallow pans at the bottom of the 

 disinfecting-chambers, in such a way that it will not come directly 

 in contact with the fabrics. Being volatile, the fumes will grad- 

 ually fill the entire chamber, and will destroy all animal life. 

 Inasmuch as carbon bisulphide, as has already been stated else- 

 where in this book, is, when mixed with atmospheric air, highly 

 explosive, no lights should be allowed to come near the chests, 

 or the apartment in which the disinfection is taking place. The 

 writer has in his own household made it a rule in the spring of 

 the year to take all rugs and have them placed in a large chest 

 about four feet long, three feet wide, and three feet deep, at the 

 bottom of which there is a slatted support beneath which is a long, 

 shallow pan. Into this pan the bisulphide is poured. The rugs 

 are loosely placed in the chest, and then it is closed tightly and 

 they are left there for forty-eight hours. 



The storage of furs and woolen garments during the summer 

 months is an important matter. The one thing to be perfectly 

 ascertained before placing garments in storage is that they are 

 thoroughly disinfected and that not a single female moth capable 

 of depositing fertile eggs is present. This fact being known with 

 certainty, all that it is necessary to do is to place the garments in 

 clean air-tight receptacles and close them up so that nothing can 

 get into them. Garments may be put into perfectly tight paper 

 bags with all openings pasted shut with a piece of tough paper. 

 The boxes in which tailors send home garments are good storage 

 receptacles, provided the garments are free from pests when put 

 into them and provided every opening in the box is pasted shut 

 with a piece of paper. It is not an altogether unwise precaution 

 to put in "moth-balls" or crystals of naphthaline or bits of 

 camphor, but it must be borne in mind that neither naphthaline 

 nor camphor will kill the larvae of moths that have once found 

 access to the garments upon which they are in the habit of feed- 

 ing. A great deal of money has been uselessly expended upon 

 such substances, when all that is necessary is simply to insure 

 the exclusion of the pests. 



The annual loss occasioned by these minute yet most annoy- 

 ing insects is vast, and it is not unreasonable to say that their 

 mischievous depredations cost the citizens of the United States 



436 



