CHAPTER VII. 



CLOTHES MOTHS AND OTHER TINE&. 



IN previous chapters we have studied the household 

 representatives of the first two orders of insects, the 

 Coleoptera and Hymenoptera ; we may now pass to the 

 third, viz., the Lepidoptera, or butterflies and moths. 

 The insignificant but abominable pests referred to in the 

 heading of this chapter will be at once recognised as 

 very familiar examples of this order. The term clothes 

 moth, however, like most popular names, is a vague and 

 indefinite one, and in most cases it is not easy to say 

 what insect really is meant when the term is used. Any 

 small moth found indoors usually gets branded with this 

 opprobrious epithet, which is thus applied indiscrimi- 

 nately to several species to some justifiably, to others 

 the reverse, There are at least half-a-dozen kinds of 

 small moths that regularly and more or less commonly 

 take up their abode with us ; but while some of them are 

 indeed fearfully destructive to woollen and other animal 

 stuffs, others are either general feeders, or depend for 

 their sustenance upon various vegetable substances, and, 

 as a rule, probably do no harm to our clothes at all, and 

 it will be our business here to endeavour to discriminate 

 carefully between these different insects. 



The term " moth" itself even is but a vague one, for 

 it is the only popular designation for a great variety of 



insects, differing considerably in structure and habits ; 



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