170 



monthly proceedings, pp. LTI to LIV. His observations were made 

 from May to September, 1887, on an immense colony of larvae which, 

 had over-run some large warehouses in the east end of Londou. Fumi- 

 gating with sulphur and hot-liming the floors, ceilings, and walls for 

 several days did not prevent their spread. The flour was mingled 

 with silk threads so as to be useless. The eggs appeared to be laid on 

 top of the sacks, and hatched within a few days. The larvae burrowed 

 through the sacking, spinning long galleries through the flour, gener- 

 ally not penetrating to a greater depth than three inches. When full 

 grown they leave the flour, crawl to the floor and up the wall, and spin 

 their compact cocoons at the angle of the wall with the roof. They are 

 difficult to keep in breeding cages on account of this migratory habit 

 when full grown, and because they escape through the smallest orifices. 

 Chickens were introduced into the warehouse and gorged themselves 

 with the larvae. A small ichneumon fly destroyed the pest by September. 



The principal English article, however, is by Miss Ormi j rod. In her 

 twelfth report, for 1889, she reviews the previous accounts of the pest in 

 England and refers to a new case in the north of England, where they 

 made their appearance in 1888. The larvae entered the spouts and ma- 

 chinery, destroying the silks, and stopped the flow of flour through the 

 spouts by their webs. Remedies were tried as follows: The mill was 

 stopped for a week, the machinery was thoroughly cleaned, hot steam 

 was run into the machines and all through the mill. The walls and 

 floors were whitewashed with freshly slacked lime and paraffine (the 

 English term for what we call kerosene in this country), and all moths 

 that were seen were captured and killed. This heroic treatment failed 

 to destroy the pest. It was supposed that this north of England case 

 was due to the importation of eggs and young larvae in returned empty 

 sacks from London. Miss Ormerod thinks that the insect came to 

 England from Europe or the East rather than from America, although 

 the sole reason which she gives for this supposition is the fact that the 

 name of the moth does not occur in Grote's check list of the moths of 

 North America in 1882. 



Dr. Bryce's bulletin, elsewhere referred to, and quoted by Mr. 

 Fletcher, we will not mention in detail. It is prepared with care, but 

 the figures could not well be poorer or more characterless. 



Our own studies of Jcilhniella have been made upon material brought 

 us by Professor Panton, of the Guelph Agricultural College, last sum- 

 mer; others in the National Museum collection, which contains the 

 rubbed specimen from Eufala, Ala., five from Europe from M. Ragonot, 

 and others received from Zeller in 1883. 



JEphestia inter punctella we have bred upon a number of occasions. We 

 first raised it upon wheat at St. Louis, in October, 1870. Larvae have 

 been sent to us from a meal-sack at Boj^lston, Mass. ; we have reared 

 it from corn from Guatemala ; larvae and moths were received from a 

 firm of manufacturing chemists from Detroit, Mich., who had found 



