yOt. XVIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. (Jgl 



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covered the cork with seaHng-wax, and to give them air, put a very small glass 

 tube through the wax and cork. The beams of the granaries likewise are all 

 eaten, for they leave the corn, and creep up the walls to the timbers of the 

 ceiling, where they fasten themselves and remain till their change. 



The worms in my glass tube, which was about a foot long, and a finger 

 wide, fastened themselves to the sides of the glass, and lay still all the winter ; 

 the web that covered them was so thin, that I could with my microscope per- 

 ceive a small motion of their heads through it. On April 29th following, 

 they began to look red, and somewhat shorter than before ; on the 30th they 

 were redder, and changed into aurelias. May 23d they were of a dark red, 

 and the next day one of them was changed into a small moth, leaving its use- 

 less skin, or winter coat. This moth had white wings with black specks ; my 

 microscope discovered these wings to be covered on both sides with feathers, 

 some of which were tipt with black. The moth had four wings, each wing 

 adorned with three rows of feathers, very long in proportion to the little crea- 

 ture, and each row increasing in size above the other ; every feather was not 

 round at the end, but indented tooth-like. May 25th I put into several tubes 

 a male and female moth, which were distinguished by the male being smaller ; 

 and after they had coupled, I opened some of the females, and found between 

 50 and 70 eggs in each. On the 26th I found in my fore-mentioned tube 6 

 moths flying ; on the 27 th I found one moth had laid near 70 eggs, each of the 

 size of a small sand, and of the shape of a hen's egg: soon after they had 

 laid their eggs the moths died. Those eggs that were laid, the 26th of May, 

 by carrying in my pocket next my body in a glass tube, were by tdo much heat 

 spoiled, the worms that were in them being killed : I therefore put them in 

 a cooler pocket, and on the 3d of June found some of them hatched, and the 

 worms creeping on the glass. I gave them some grains of wheat, in which 

 they soon housed themselves. Those eggs which were laid about the 25th of 

 May, and were not keep warm, but laid in my closet-window, were not hatched 

 till about the 10th of June : so that the warmth of the body hastens their 

 hatching. The corn- merchants observe them not till about August, though 

 they are hatched in about 16 days after the moth flies about, and are not per- 

 ceived by reason of their smallness, and their hiding themselves in the first 

 grain of corn that they eat into, and are not seen till they quit that for another. 

 These worms are not only destructive to corn, but are also in old timber, books, 

 boxes, woollen stuffs, and the like. 



This Leing so destructive and prolific an insect, for of 70 eggs I found but 

 one barren, and 3 with dead worms, I thought of a way to destroy them, which 

 ia thus : I took a glass vessel, and put mto it 8 moths, and firing some brim- 



