58 DIRECT INJURIES FROM MOTHS. 



discernible to the naked eye. It destroys all kinds 

 of household stuff, except solid metals. A single 

 night has been sufficient for these little depredators 

 to destroy the entire goods of a warehouse, reducing 

 bales of merchandise to dust without their external 

 appearance or shape being altered ; and it is only 

 when they are handled that the merchant perceives 

 the wreck of his property.* 



To check the superabundance of species which 

 would, in the course of time, overrun the earth, it has 

 been wisely ordered, that one species shall prey upon 

 another. The destructive larva? of the Bombyx villica, 

 and that of other species of moths, become a prey 

 to the larva of various species of the Ichneumon 

 Fly, which deposits its egg within the body of th!s 

 caterpillar, where it remains, preys upon its interior, 

 changes to the chrysalis condition, and emerges when 

 it has assumed the perfect or imago state. The 

 Colosoma sycophanta, an animal of the Beetle kind, 

 often takes up its station in the nests of the Bombyx 

 processioned, (the Processionary Moth,) and other 

 moths, and sometimes gluts itself so much with 

 devouring these caterpillars, that it is nearly ready 

 to burst. 



* ULLOA, i. 67. 



