RAVAGES OF CATERPILLARS. 



221 



ing a gallery between them, from which it projects its, 

 head wliile feeding; the grains, as Iv aumur remarks, 

 being prevented li-om rolhng or shpping by the silk 

 which unites them. He jiisllv ridicules the absurd 

 notion of its tiling off the outer skin ol' the wheat by 

 rubbing upon it with its budy, the latter being the 

 softer of the two: and he disproved, by exiieriinent, 

 Leeuwenhoeck's assertion that it will also feed on 

 woollen cloth. It is from the end of INI ay till the 

 beginning of July that the moths, which are of a 

 silvery gray, spotted with brown, appear and lay their 

 eggs in granaries. 



The caterpillar of another still more singular 

 grain moth {Tinea Hordei, Kirby) proves some- 

 times very destructive to granaries. The mother 

 moth, in May or June, lays about twenty or more 

 eggs on a grain of barley or wheat; and when the 

 caterpillars are hatched they disperse, each selecting 

 a single grain. 31. R' aumur imagines that san- 

 guinary wars must sometimes arise, in cases of pre- 

 occupancy, a single* grain of barley being a rich 



Transformations of the grain moths, n. frain of harley Incliid- 

 inp a criterpillar : ft, . , the grain cut ncrr^ts, seen to he hollowed 

 out, ami divided by a partition of silk ; ti, the moth {Tinea 

 Hoxici) ; e. grains of wheal tied toffether hy thp caterpillar ; /, 

 g, the moth ( Eupln'-amut ipnvr'Jr. '. 



19- 



