148 DORSET CLOTHES-MOTHS AND THEIR HABITS. 



detect their presence. I have been much struck with the 

 wonderful power which is possessed by these last two species, 

 especially the latter, of laying their eggs (which are laid loose) so 

 that the larvse get into tightly fitting boxes. How they manage it 

 I hardly know, but I have often found the larvce of E. fenestrella 

 feeding in a card pill box with tightly fitting lid, when they must 

 have got in when the box was shut. I can only suppose that the 

 moth inserted its ovipositor between the lid and box and the young 

 larva when hatched pushed its way in. If an inverted bell-glass is 

 covered with a piece of muslin stretched over its mouth, and pupse 

 are inside, E. fenestrella will probably appear after a time and 

 devour them. In this case the moth must drop its eggs through 

 the muslin as it cannot get through to the pupse. 



From the foregoing remarks it will be seen, to sum up, that the 

 chief clothes-moths to be dreaded are 



1. Tinea pellionella and merdella; larva feeding in a case. 



2. Tinea biselliella and tapetzella ; larva feeding with no case, 

 but spinning silken tubes. 



3. (Ecoplwra pseudospretella and Endrosis fenestrella, larva 

 without any case, feeding on a great variety of substances. 



There are other species which are productive of much damage at 

 times to our groceries and corn and other vegetable products and 

 which are essentially found in what may be called a domesticated 

 state, which I should have liked to include in my paper, but 

 time and space are wanting, and they must wait for another 

 opportunity. 



I have only a few words to say on what, I fear most people will 

 consider the most interesting portion of this paper " How to 

 destroy clothes-moths." 



In the first place it is important to be able to see them at all. 

 They are sufficiently large, but it is astonishing how often people 

 will tell one they have no clothes-moths in the house, when they 

 are obviously flying about the room in which they are sitting. 

 Then it is necessary to recognise them and not to make oneself, 

 and still more the poor insect, uneasy, by pursuing and killing 



