UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



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% BULLETIN No. 783 



Contribution from the Bureau of Entomology 

 L. O. HOWARD, Chief 



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Washington, D. C. 



PROFESSIONAL PAPER 



July 14, 1919 



THE RICE MOTH. 



By F. H. Chittenden, 

 Entomologist In Charge of Truck-Crop Insect Investigations. 



CONTENDS. 



Page. 



Introduction 1 



Nature of injury 1 



Descriptive 2 



Ttie moth 2 



Tlie egg 3 



The larva 3 



The pupa 4 



Distribution 4 



Page. 



Food habits 4 



Reported injuries 5 



Life history 7 



Associated insects 8 



History and literature 9 



Control measures 10 



Summary 13 



Literature cited 14 



INTRODUCTION. ' 



Among the insect enemies of stored products which have been ob- 

 served recently in this country, a small whitish larva or caterpillar 

 of the moth Corcyra cephalonica Stainton (PL I) has attracted atten- 

 tion by its injuries. It resembles somewhat the better-known fig 

 moth {EpTiestia cautella Walk.). It has not been noted as a pest of 

 importance, and has been given no common or English name. As it 

 is somewhat widely reported as destructive to stored rice it may 

 be called the rice moth. Beginning with October, 1911, complaints 

 of damage by this insect were received from a firm manufactur- 

 ing chocolate in western Pennsylvania, and a year later from an- 

 other manufacturing firm in the same State, but the species was not 

 positively identified until 1916. 



NATURE OF INJURY. 



The first correspondent of the Bureau of Entomology who wrote 

 of this insect stated that beans of cacao {Theohroma cacao) imported 

 from the Tropics were subject to attack by the larva. Apparently it 



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