192 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



to the common clothes moth, so deservedly hated by fur-dealers,, 

 careful housewives, and keepers of museums. The larva of this 

 insect feeds upon the com, covering it at the same time with 

 a tissue of silken threads. The most curious portion of the 

 life of this insect is, that after the larva has finished eating the 

 com, it procee'ds to the sides of the gi-anary, and there burrows 

 into the wood, making its holes so closely together that, if the 

 timber had been taken out of the sea, the Gribble would have 

 had the credit of the tunnels. Nothing seems to stop this little 

 creature, and it bores through deal planks with perfect ease, 

 making its way even through the knots without being checked 

 either by the hardness of the wood, or the abundance of tur- 

 pentine with which the knots in deal are saturated. This is the 

 more astonishing, because turpentine is mostly fatal to insects, 

 and a little spirit of turpentine in a box wiU effectually keep off 

 all moths and beetles. 



In these burrows the larvae change into the pupal state, and 

 there remain imtil the following summer, when they emerge in 

 hosts, ready to deposit their eggs upon the corn, and raise up 

 fresh armies of devourers. Another singular fact is, that after 

 these caterpillars have lived for so long upon corn, their tastes 

 should change so suddenly as to induce them to take to wood, 

 and wood moreover which is never free from turpentine, however 

 well it may be seasoned. 



The last of our burrowers is the Honey-comb Moth, belong- 

 ing to the genus Galleria. Two species of this genus are known 

 in England, both of which are plentiful in this country. 



These moths live in the comb of the hive bee, and when 

 once they have succeeded in depositing their eggs, the combs are 

 generally doomed. The envenomed stings of the bees are 

 useless against these little pests, for though their bodies are soft 

 they take care to conceal themselves in a stout silken tube, and 

 their heads are hard, homy, and penetrable by no sting borne 

 by bee. I once had a very complete case of honey-comb 

 utterly destroyed by the Galleria moths, which draw their silken 

 tubes through and through the combs, ate up even my beautiful 

 royal cells, devoured all the bee-bread, and converted the care- 

 fully chosen specimens into an undistinguisliable mass of dirty 

 silk, d^is and moths, both dead and living. 



