442 ANIMALS INTRODUCED UNAWARES 



during a voyage by the ravages of Corn Weevils. Calandra 

 probably belonged originally to a warmer country than ours, 

 but now commerce has added it to the faunas of almost all 

 parts of the world. In the British Isles it is frequently found 

 amongst wheat or barley in mills, granaries or breweries, 

 and its presence has been recorded and its ravages deplored 

 in Canada and the United States, in Europe, Asia, Africa, 

 and even in far Australia. 



S(T often it happens that the dispersal of a species has 

 been completed by man before the stages of its progress 

 could be observed, that particular interest attaches to a form 

 which is just beginning to find a place in a new country, and 

 which still is treading the progressive steps which lead to 

 universal distribution. Of Beetle species which by long 

 standing naturalization have become part and parcel of our 

 fauna are such household tenants as the Store Beetles, 

 Niptus hololeucus and N. crenatus, but their congener 

 Ptinus tectus, regarded as hailing originally from Tasmania, 

 is a recent arrival in this country. The earliest specimens 

 were found in 1901, and since that time it has been dis- 

 covered in bakers' shops, granaries, and store-rooms in 

 several places, including, in Scotland, a meal-mill at Dun- 

 fermline (1905) and a bake-house at Stromness in Orkney 

 (1905). So far this invader has occurred predominantly at 

 seaports or in the immediate neighbourhood of ports. 



Because of its recent discovery in Scotland the occurrence 

 of a small pale greyish-brown moth much resembling a 

 Clothes' Moth in appearance, may be noted. The Angou- 

 mois Grain Moth (Sitotroga cerealella] infests Indian corn, 

 wheat and barley, and in such cargoes has been carried 

 over the whole world ; for it is regarded as a pest in Africa, 

 from Algeria to Nyassaland, as much as in Europe, and in 

 Australia as much as in Canada and the United States. 

 Dr R. S. MacDougall states that it has been taken in Scotland 

 as well as in England, and some idea of the abundance of 

 such pests and of the destruction wrought by them may be 

 gained from a description quoted by him of a whole cargo 

 of Indian corn, recently condemned in an English port 



on account of its being infested with the parasites. The warehouse was 

 a crawling mass of them. There were millions of small grey-white moths, 

 and nearly every grain contained a weevil. 



