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By NELSON M. RICHARDSON, B.A., F.E.S. 



(Read February 17th, 1897. J 



f 1 I 



/|F HAVE followed the illustrious example of our Treasurer 

 in calling this paper Dorset Clothes-Moths, 

 but I may mention that I shall not, like him, 

 have any need of an appendix for those 

 clothes-moths not yet found in Dorset, for 

 this highly favoured county already contains 

 all the known British species answering to 

 that description. 



The very startling statements that have been made to me on 

 various occasions on the subject of clothes-moths, by ladies chiefly, 

 but also by gentlemen, have made me think that, even to our 

 enlightened Field Club Members, a few words on their habits and 

 life histories would perhaps be acceptable. 



In the first place it may be unnecessary to mention here that 

 moths themselves do not eat clothes at all they have no teeth or 

 jaws or any appliances for such a purpose but their mouth, where 

 they have any, and a great many have nothing more than the 

 merest rudiment of it, consists of a tongue, or, to speak scientifi- 

 cally, a pair of maxilla?, or long thread-like projections, more or 

 less rough on the inside, so that they usually remain stuck together 



