212 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



through the knots without being checked either by the hardness 

 of the wood, or the abundance of turpentine with which the knots 

 in deal are saturated. This is the more astonishing, because tur- 

 pentine is mostly fatal to insects, and a little spirit of turpentine 

 in a box will effectually keep off all moths and beetles. 



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

 there remain until 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, how- 

 ever well it may be seasoned. 



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

 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 gener- , 

 ally 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, horny, and penetrable by no sting borne by bee. 

 I once had a very complete case of honey-comb utterly destroyed 

 by the Gralleria Moths, which draw their silken tubes through 

 and through the combs, ate up even my beautiful royal cells, de- 

 voured all the bea-bread, and converted the carefully chosen spec- 

 imens into an undistinguishable mass of dirty silk, debris and 

 moths, both dead and living. 



Not long ago, one of my friends, who was about to deliver a 

 lecture on the structure of the bee's cell, and who had got together 

 a collection of combs for the purpose of illustration, came to me in 

 dire distress, and showed me the combs, all covered with the tun- 

 nels of the Galleria Moth. The ■ damage which they had done 

 was very great, but their presence was discovered in time to pre- 

 vent them from utterly destroying the combs. After all the cat- 

 erpillars that could be captured had been destroyed, a wide- 

 mouthed bottle containing spirit of turpentine was placed in the 

 box, and speedily killed the survivors, while a bath in a solution 

 of corrosive sublimate protected the remaining combs against a 

 future brood of Galleria Moth. 



