CEREAL PESTS INSECTS 499 



kernels of grain, and excrement, and leaves flour and meal 

 in a matted condition. The insect is common in cereal 

 and peanut mills. In flour mills it prefers the mid- 

 dlings. 



543. The meal snout-moth (Pyralis farinalis, Linn.) is 

 generally distributed over the grain-growing regions. The 

 caterpillar attacks all kinds of grain, ground products, 

 and other dry vegetable material, but prefers meal and 

 bran, especially where the latter are warm and slightly 

 damp. The life cycle is about 8 weeks, and there are 

 3 or 4 generations annually. 



The larvae are slender, almost 1 inch long, whitish, shading to 

 orange-yellow toward each end, the head brownish-red and rather 

 shiny. The adult moth is light brown, with reddish reflections. 

 The fore wings expanded measure from f to If inches; are light brown 

 in color, crossed with 2 wavy white lines, and have dark chocolate- 

 brown spots on the base and tip of each. The female is always 

 larger than the male. The moth is usually found near the food of 

 the larva, but may be seen on ceilings of rooms and on bags of flour 

 or bran, and when disturbed, will curve its tail up over its back. 



The caterpillars form long tubes of silk and food par- 

 ticles, like the Indian-meal moth larva, and when mature, 

 construct tough silken cocoons covered with food particles 

 in which they transform to pupae, causing in all these 

 operations' the same stringiness and lumpiness of the 

 meal and bran already described. 



544. The control of indoor cereal insects. Mills 

 and grain and flour warehouses should be kept scru- 

 pulously clean. All accumulations of flour and meal on 

 the floors, in corners, and under machinery should be 

 swept away and disposed of in a way to kill all life con- 

 tained therein. 



There are three chief means of eradication, (1) heat- 



