affecting the Corn- Crops. 
85 
the present day. Dr. Herpin * says, " I have more g^rounds than 
ever to fear that the Alucita, which had somewhat disappeared 
during several years from our central districts, will show itself 
again in 1843 or 1844. I moreover fear that this scourge, which 
advances slowly from the south or west towards the north, will ere 
long penetrate into the fertile fields and the immense magazines 
of the Beauce. There will then no longer be time to avoid the 
most frightful disasters — famine and epidemics, which the Alucita 
brings after it. Imported into the Charente-Inferieure and 
Angoumois towards 1750, l\ie Alucita was then propagated in the 
Aunis and Saintonge. About 1780 it commenced to spread itself 
in the Limousin ; in 1807 it penetrated into the department of the 
Indre; in 1826 it invaded the department of Cher; it is now at 
the confines of the Beauce." j One may readily comprehend the 
dread expressed by our continental neighbours at the approach 
of this insect, when we learn from them that the infested corn 
loses 40 per cent, of its weight in 6 months, and 75 per cent, of the 
farinaceous substance it contains. 
The following history of this moth has been principally ob- 
tained from Reaumur.^ It belongs to the Order Lepidoptera, 
Family Tineid^, and the Genus Butalis of Ochsenheimer, 
according to Duponchel ; but it agrees better, I think, with my 
Genus Laverna. § The caterpillars live in the grain of different 
corn, as wheat, oats, and maize, but principally in barleycorns. The 
female moth lays a cluster of 20 or 30 eggs upon a single grain, in 
lines or little oblong masses in the longitudinal channel ; and this 
operation is performed in the field before the ears are perfectly 
matured, as well as in the granary : they are of a beautiful red 
orange colour. The caterpillars hatch in 6 or 7 days after the 
eggs are laid, and sometimes in 4 only, and Ihen they are hardly 
as thick as a hair. The first caterpillar which hatches penetrates 
into the grain, in a little spot between the beard and the appendage 
of the sheath, which is more tender than the rest ; but the aperture 
is imperceptible owing to the minuteness of the larva. Having 
taken possession of the grain, the remainder, as they escape from 
the shell, have to seek other grains ; and when they find them un- 
occupied they pierce and enter them in the same way as we have 
described, so that each grain contains no more than one occupant ; 
and this is sufficient to support the larva until it arrives at ma- 
* Recherches sur la Destruction de TAlucite, ou Teigne des Graines : 
published in Paris, in 1838. 
+ Menaoire sur divers Insectes nuisibles a I'Agriculture, par J. Ch. 
Herpin. 
% Memoires pour servir a I'Hist. des Insectes, vol. ii. p. 486, pi. 39, 
figs. 9-19. 
J Curtis's Bnt. Ent., fol. and pi. 735. 
