DORSET CLOTHES-MOTHS AND THEIR HABITS. 139 



and form a sort of channel or tube. This channel communicates 

 with the actual mouth of the moth and, the tongue being inserted 

 into a flower, the honey is sucked up and swallowed. I doubt 

 whether, as a rule, clothes-moths take any nourishment after they 

 have emerged from the pupa, though they have tongues more or 

 less developed, generally the latter. They fulfil their mission in 

 life by laying their eggs on some material suitable for the food of 

 their larvae, and then die. I do not think they are very long- 

 lived moths, from ten days to three weeks being probably about 

 the duration of their existence. 



In the egg state also, it is hardly necessary to say, clothes-moths 

 are perfectly harmless, but as soon as these little eggs hatch the 

 work of destruction commences and never ceases till the larva, 

 which is furnished with sharp and strong jaws, having eaten as 

 much as its powers and the surrounding circumstances permit, has 

 arrived at its full growth arid can eat no more. The eggs of most 

 of these moths are of a flattened oval shape and of a pearly trans- 

 lucency. They are laid loosely and not affixed to the food. The 

 larvee are bone coloured with brown or black heads and dorsal 

 plates, and very similar to each other in appearance. When 

 full fed, the larva finishes the work of destruction by biting off a 

 great deal of wool or whatever material it has been feeding on, 

 and forming with it a cocoon, in which it changes into a chrysalis 

 or pupa. Those larvae which live in cases merely spin up the 

 mouth of the case before their change. 



After lying in this quiescent condition for a time the patterns of 

 the wings begin to appear through the thin brownish skin which 

 covers them, and shortly this external shell bursts open and the 

 moth wriggles out with all its parts fully developed except the 

 wings, which are very small. These little wings have all their 

 scales perfect and show the pattern on them distinctly, but are quite 

 soft and have no stiffness in them. The moth crawls up the first 

 object it can find so as to enable it to rest, if possible, in such a 

 position that its body and wings may hang downwards. It is most 

 extraordinary to see these tiny wings grow they lengthen out in 



