THE ANGOUMOIS GRAIN-MOTH. 503 



penetrated into Pennsylvania or passed the Delaware." They 

 remarked, moreover, that the insects "appeared to be of 

 the same kind with those that do the like mischief in Europe, 

 as described to Mr. Duhamel by a gentleman of Angou- 

 mois." 



Mr. Louis A. G. Bosc, who was sent by the French 

 government, in 1796, to this country, where he spent several 

 years, found the Alacita cerealella " so abundant in Carolina 

 as to extinguish a candle when he entered his granary in the 

 night." * This fly-weevil, or little grain-moth, has spread 

 from Xorth Carolina and Virginia, where its depredations 

 were first observed, into Kentucky, and the southern parts 

 of Ohio and Indiana, and probably more or less throughout 

 the wheat region of the adjacent States, between the thirty- 

 sixth and fortieth degrees of north latitude. But these are 

 not the extreme limits of its occasional depredations, as it has 

 been found even in New England, where, however, its propa- 

 gation seems to have been limited by the length and severity 

 of the winter. Wheat, barley, oats, and Indian corn suffer 

 alike from it, the last especially when kept unprotected more 

 than six or eight months. 



Several essays on this insect have appeared in agricultural 

 journals, none of which, however, were known to me when 

 my first account of the Angoumois moth was written. One 

 of these is an elaborate article by Edward Ruffin, Esq., of 

 Hanover County, Virginia, printed in " The Farmers' Regis- 

 ter " for November, 1833. The object of the writer is to 

 prove, by a series of experiments, that there is a continued 

 reproduction of the insect, in stored grain, at short intervals, 

 throughout the warm season, or from the latter part of June 

 till further increase is checked by cold weather. Mr. Ruffin 

 thinks that but very few eggs are deposited on corn in the 

 field, that these do not ordinarily hatch till the following 

 summer, and that then they are sufficient to stock the whole 



* Encycloptidie Mdthodique, Agriculture, Tom. V. p. 243. Mr. Bosc, a con 

 tributor to this work, resided some time at VVDmington, North Carolina. 



