REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST 



379 



the barn. Bushels of light wheat were blown out with the chaff, being 

 nothing but hulls of bran; the rest of the grain had been eaten by the 

 worms. After threshing some time the man feeding the thresher found 

 that the cylinder did not draw the sheaves into the machine as usual, 

 and some time later not at all. Upon examination the concave was 

 found clogged with dust and mashed worms, which adhered to the 

 concave teeth, until the spaces between them were closed, excepting 

 passage ways kept open by each cylinder tooth. 



The wheat was put in sacks from the machine as threshed, and 

 would heat over night in the bags. I was told that a farmer took 100 

 measured bushels of wheat to a mill, and when weighed he had only 

 59 bushels, which was then kept separate and ground, and it made five 

 barrels of flour. 



These worms first appeared in 1890, and have now spread about ten 

 miles from their starting point. I enclose a sample of wheat damaged 

 by these worms. Is it a new enemy to wheat, or is it an old one just 

 appearing in a new territory, and how can it be successfully destroyed? 

 Can it be carried and introduced by sowing infected wheat from where 

 it is now ? 



The insect, so destructive to wheat in Montgomery county, Pa., is 

 an old grain pest, which has been known in Europe for over a century 

 and a half, although 

 it was first given a 

 scientific name by 

 Olivier in 1789. Reau- 

 mur wrote extensivelv 

 of its ravages in 

 France in 1736. In 

 1760 it had increased 

 to so alarming an 

 extent that the atten- 

 tion of the govern- <ne moth; d, the wings of a pa/er variety; e, the egg; /, kernel 

 of corn showing the work of the larva; g, labial paipus of the 

 ment was enlisted, and male moth; h, anal segment of the pup*— all enlarged except /. 

 ' (From Riley.) 



commissioners of the 



Academy of Science of Paris were appointed to visit the province of 

 Angoumois and investigate and report on the insect. As stated in their 

 report : "The insect was found to swarm in all the wheat fields and grana- 

 ries in Angoumois and of the neighboring provinces, and the afflicted 

 inhabitants were thereby deprived not only of their principal staple 

 wherewith they were wont to pay their annual rents, taxes, and tithes, 

 but were threatened with famine and pestilence from the want of 

 wholesome bread." It is shown in its several stages in Fig. 1. 



History in the United States. 

 As early as in 1730, it was operating in North Carolina. In 1768, a 

 communication upon it was sent to the American Philosophical Society 



