CORN MOTH. 



CORN MOTH. 



have elapsed, small whitish worm maggots, or 

 more properly speaking larvae, p -oceed from 

 the eggs, and immediately penetrate into the 

 grain, carefully closing up the opening with 

 their white roundish excrement, which they 

 glue together by a fine web. 



"The European grain-moth (Tinea granella), 

 in^its perfected state, is," says Dr. Harris, "a 

 winged insect, between three and four-tenths 

 of an inch long from the head to the tip of its 

 wings, and expands six-tenths of an inch. It 

 has a whitish tuft on its forehead ; its long and 

 narrow wings cover its back like a sloping 

 roof, are a little turned up behind, and are 

 edged with a wide fringe. Its fore-wings are 

 glossy like satin, and are marbted with white 

 or gray, light brown, and dajk brown or 

 blackish spots, and there is always one dark 

 square spot near the middle of the outer edge. 

 Its hind wings are blackish. Some of these 

 winged moths appear in May, others in July 

 and August, at which times they lay their 

 eggs ; for there are two broods of them in the 

 course of the year. The young from the first 

 laid eggs come to their growth and finish their 

 transformations in six weeks or two months ; 

 the others live through the winter, and turn to 

 winged moths in the following spring. The 

 young moth-worms do not burrow into the 

 grain, as has been asserted by some writers, 

 who seem to have confounded them with the 

 Angoumois grain-worms ; but, as soon as they 

 are hatched, they begin to gnaw the grain and 

 cover themselves with the fragments, which 

 they line with a silken web. As they increase 

 in size they fasten together several grains 

 with their webs, so as to make a larger cavity, 

 wherein they live. After a while, becoming 

 uneasy, in their confined habitations, they 

 come out, and wander over the grain, spinning 

 their threads as they go, till they have found a 

 suitable place wherein to make their cocoons. 

 Thus, wheat, rye, barley, and oats, all of which 

 they attack, will be found full of lumps of 

 grains cemented together by these corn-worms, 

 as they are sometimes called ; and when they 

 are very numerous, the whole surface of the 

 grain in the bin will be covered with a thick 

 crust of webs and of adhering grains. These 

 destructive corn- worms are really soft and 

 naked caterpillars, of a cylindrical shape, 

 tapering a little at each end, and are provided 

 with sixteen legs, the first three pairs of which 

 are conical and jointed, and the others fleshy 

 and wart-like. When fully grown, they mea- 

 sure four or five-tenths of an inch in length, 

 and are of a light ochre or buff colour, with a 

 reddish head. When about six weeks old they 

 leave the grain, and get into cracks, or around 

 the sides of corn-bins, and each one then makes 

 itself a little oval pod or cocoon, about as large 

 as a grain of wheat. The insects of the first 

 brood, as before said, come out of their co- 

 coons, in the winged form, in July and August, 

 and lay their eggs for another brood: the 

 others remain unchanged in th ir cocoons, 

 through the winter, and take the chrysalis form 

 ro March or April following. Three weeks 

 afterwards, the shining brown chrysalis forces 

 viself part way nt of the cocoon, by the help 

 356 



of some little sharp points on its tail, and b irsts 

 open at the other end, so as to allow the moth 

 therein confined to come forth. 



" The foregoing account will probably enable 

 the readers of this essay to determine whether 

 these destructive insects are found in our own 

 country. From various statements, deficient 

 however in exactness, that have appeared in 

 some of our agricultural journals, I am led to 

 think that this corn-moth,or an insect exactly like 

 it in its habits, prevails in all parts of the coun- 

 try, and that it has generally been mistaken for 

 the grain-weevil, which it far surpasses in its de- 

 vastations. Many years ago I remember to 

 have seen oats and shelled corn (maize) af- 

 fected in the way above described, and have 

 observed seed-corn, hanging* in the ears, to 

 have been attacked by insects of this kind, the 

 empty chrysalids of which remained sticking 

 between the kernels ; but, for some time past, 

 no opportunity for further investigation has 

 offered itself. 



" There is another grain-moth, which, at va- 

 rious times, has been found to be more destruc- 

 tive in granaries, in some provinces of France, 

 than the preceding kind. It is the Angoumois 

 moth (Anacampsis? cerealella'). The winged 

 moths of this group have only two visible 

 feelers, and these are generally long, slender 

 and curved over their heads. Their narrow 

 wings most often overlap each other, and 

 cover their backs horizontally when shut. The 

 Angoumois grain moth probably belongs to the 

 modern genus Jlnacampsis, a word derived from 

 the Greek, and signifying recurved, in allusion 

 to the direction of the feelers of the moths. In 

 the year 1769, Colonel Landon Carter, of Sa- 

 bine Hall, Virginia, communicated to the Ame- 

 rican Philosophical Society at Philadelphia, 

 some interesting ' observations concerning the 

 fly-weevil that destroys wheat.' These were 

 printed in the first volume of the 'Transactions' 

 of the Society, and were followed by some re- 

 marks on the subject by * the Committee of 

 Husbandry.' It is highly probable that this 

 fly-weevil is no other than the destructive An- 

 goumois grain-moth ; for Colonel Carter's ac- 

 count of it, though deficient in some particu- 

 lars, agrees essentially with what has been 

 published respecting the European insect. Mr. 

 E. C. Herrick has recently sent to me, from 

 New Haven, Connecticut, some wheat, that has 

 been eaten by moths precisely in the same \vay 

 as grain is attacked by the Angoumois grain- 

 moth; and a gentleman to whom this moth- 

 eaten wheat was shown, informed me that he 

 had seen grain thus affected in Maine. Unfor- 

 tunately the insects contained in this wheat 

 were dead when received, having perished in 

 the chrysalis state ; had they lived to finish 

 their transformations, I have good reason to 

 think that they would have proved to be identi- 

 cal with the Angoumois moths. The following 

 particulars respecting the latter are chiefly 

 gathered from Reaumur's ' Memoires,' and from 

 a work by Duhamel du Monceau and Tillet, 

 who were commissioned by the Academy of 

 Sciences of Paris, in the year 1760, to inquire 

 into the nature of the insect, on account of ita 

 ravages in Angoumois, a part of France wher 



