DORSET CLOTHES-MOTHS AND THEIR HABITS. 147 



ing moths, amongst which it makes great havoc if it gains 

 admittance to the cabinet drawer, seeds of many kinds, corn, peas, 

 &c., dried plants, live and dead chrysalides of butterflies and moths, 

 figs, dates, groceries of many kinds, and if I had the power of 

 exterminating any one species of clothes-moths, I think it is the 

 one I should choose as the greatest general pest. It is, I believe, 

 not an original native of Europe but has been introduced accord- 

 ing to Meyrick about 1840. The same author states that it occurs 

 in Northern and North Central Europe, N. America, Australia, 

 and New Zealand. I should think it would be very extraordinary 

 if it had not, long ere this, been imported into Asia and Africa also, 

 by the agency of man, for it must often get shipped in quantities 

 in various cargoes. 



Endrosis fenestrella, Sta., has a conspicuously white head and 

 thorax, which distinguish it from all the other species I have 

 mentioned, and from nearly all our other British moths. Its fore- 

 wings are not unlike those of (E, pseudospretella and have the 

 same mottled appearance, but are rather whiter. It is also a 

 decidedly smaller species and more delicately formed, 

 (E. pseudospretella being an unusually coarse and rather greasy 

 looking moth. 



The larva makes no case and the habits and food of the two are 

 very similar, except that E. fenestrella is rather more limited in its 

 food and does not, I think, attack skins. It may be found in the 

 perfect state and freshly emerged, on almost any day in the year, 

 though it is not very usual to see it in the winter. The larva is 

 always feeding somewhere and if a few get shut up with a little 

 food in a bottle, they will go on breeding for a long time, the 

 specimens getting smaller and smaller as the food gets scarcer, until 

 even they have to come to an end, and cannot get sufficient 

 nourishment to reach the pupa state, though they devour their 

 ancestors' remains with perfect equanimity. I think that this 

 moth is one of the most universally distributed, being found, I 

 expect, in pretty nearly every house in the kingdom. The owners 

 may not see them, but let an entomologist enter and he will soon 



