June 1895.] INJURIOUS INSECTS AND FUNGI. 



29 



the Entomologists' Monthly Magazine of Ephestia Kuhniella, 

 and stated that he had identified the larvae of this species found 

 in a bakery near Stony Stratford. Miss Ormerod, however, was 

 the first economic entomologist who described this insect in 

 elaborate detail, and gave exhaustive accounts of its injuries in 

 flour mills and corn stores, with remedies and methods of 

 prevention to be adopted against it. 



Since 1887, this moth has been i-ecognised as the author of 

 material havoc in many flour mills in England, by clogging up 

 the spouts of the elevators and parts of the milling machinery 

 with the flour collected in masses by the webs of the larvae. 

 Great losses are incurred by the disarrangement and excessive 

 wear and tear of parts of the machinery, and of the silks which 

 are used for dressing, awing to the presence of the infested 

 flour, which is transformed into a hard, felt-like substance. 

 Besides this derangement and damage,, much loss is sustained in 

 a badly infested mill by the flour actually consumed by the 

 larvae, or that w^hich is spoilt by their excrements and sticky 

 webs. 



In flour stores, considerable injury is frequently occasioned by 

 the flour moth, especially where flour is stored for any time. 

 Flour kept in sacks as imported is often greatly damaged, and 

 the whole grain of wheat, barley, oats, or lye after lying long in 

 infested stores has been found so matted together with the webs 

 of the larvae as to be almost useless. In France, the biscuits 

 for the nse of the soldiers have been seriously attacked in some 

 of the depots. According to M. Danysz, who wrote an ex- 

 haustive treatise on this moth in 1893,^' biscuits infested with 

 these larvae are injurious to health, and instances are given of 

 pigs and fish having died after eating grain infested with the 

 Ephestia Kuhniella larvae. He adds that it is extremely rare 

 to find these biscuits free from infestation at the end of the 

 period of 14 months, for which it is required that the biscuits 

 should be kept before they are served out to the troops. 



There has been a rapid increase in the infestation of mills 

 and flour and corn stores in this and other countries, in conse- 

 quence of the continuously increasing importation and move- 

 ment of corn and flour between country and country and 

 between localities in each country. The importation and trans- 

 portation of flour in bags have especially tended to spread 

 this pest throughout this country. Bags and sacks are well 

 known to be the most fertile sources of this infestation, and 

 flour bags particularly. 



The modern systems of milling with the elaborate machinery, 

 the continuous working of the mills, and the greater heat in 

 them, have also materially conduced to the rapid propagation of 

 this insect. At the same time, the difficulty of thorough and 

 frequent cleansing and disinfesting mills has been considerably 



* Ephestia Kuhniella : Parasite des bles, des farinos, et des biscuits. Histoire 

 natiirelle du parasite et mojens de le detrdire, par J. Danysz. Paris, 1893. 



