INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 233 



those under her care against the ravages of the moths. 

 Upon further inquiry you would find that nothing made 

 of wool, whether cloth or stuff, comes amiss to them. 

 There are five species described by Linne, which are 

 more or less engaged in this work : Tinea vestianella, 

 tapetzella, pellionella, Recurvaria sarcitella, and Galleria 

 Mellonella. Of the first we have no particular history, 

 except that it destroys garments in the summer ; but of 

 the others Reaumur has given a complete one. T. tapet- 

 zella, or the tapestry moth, not uncommon in our houses, 

 is most injurious to the lining of carriages, which are 

 more exposed to the air than the furniture of our apart- 

 ments. These do not construct a moveable habitation 

 like the common species, but, eating their way in the 

 thickness of the cloth, weave themselves silken galleries 

 in which they reside, and which they render close and 

 warm by covering them with some of the eroded wool a . 

 T. pellionella is a most destructive insect, and ladies have 

 often to deplore the ravages which it commits in- their 

 valuable furs, whether made up into muffs or tippets it 

 pays no more respect to the regal ermine than to the 

 woollen habiliments of the poor ; its proper food, indeed, 

 being hair, though it devours both wool and fur. This 

 species, if hard pressed by hunger, will even eat horse- 

 hair, and make its habitation, a moveable house or case, 

 in which it travels from place to place, of this untractable 

 material. These little creatures will shave the hair from 

 a skin as neatly and closely as if a razor had been em- 

 ployed 5 . The most natural food of the next species, 

 H. sarcitella, is wool ; but in case of necessity it will eat 

 fur and hair. To woollen cloths or stuffs it often does 



* Reaum. iii. 2G6. b Ibid, 59. 



