THE BEE- MOTH. 489 



tween which it is not necessary particularly to notice in this 

 place. 



Some moth-worms burrow into leaves, and make winding 

 passages in the pulpy substance thereof, under the skin ; 

 some bore into the stems of plants ; and a few are found 

 only on the surface of leaves, or on roots. Living plants, 

 however, form but a small part of the food of the Tineas, 

 most of which subsist on other substances ; and, for this 

 reason, they would have been passed by without further 

 notice, were it not for the depredations of certain species 

 on some of our most valuable possessions. Most of these 

 pests are foreign insects, and have been introduced into this 

 country from abroad ; it will not, therefore, be in my power 

 to offer anything absolutely new about them. Nevertheless, 

 a few remarks on some of the most remarkable or destruc- 

 tive of these moths may not be wholly useless or unaccept- 

 able to those persons for whom this treatise was particularly 

 designed. 



The largest insects of this tribe belong to the group called 

 Crambidje, or Crambians, among which the bee-moth or 

 wax-moth is to be placed. This pernicious insect was well 

 known to the ancients, and we find it mentioned, under 

 the name of Tinea, in the works of Virgil and Columella,* 

 old Roman writers on husbandry. In the winged state, 

 the male and female differ so much in size, color, and in 

 the form of their fore wings, that they were supposed, by 

 Linnaeus and by some other naturalists, to be different spe- 

 cies, and accordingly received two 

 different names. f To avoid confu- 

 sion, it will be best to adopt the 

 scientific name given to the bee-moth 

 by Fabricius, who called it Galleria 

 eereana (Fig. 240), that is, the wax 

 Galleria, because, in its caterpillar 



* Virgil, Georgic TV. line 246. Columella, Husbandry, Book IX. chap. 1-4. 

 f ToHvix eereana, the male; Tinea mellonella, the female. 

 62 



