affecting the Corn- Crops. 
87 
they are straight, with the apex very pointed when deprived of 
the frino;^e; they form a rounded or depressed roof in repose, 
their extremities crossing one another : the fringe, wliich is of a 
clearer colour, is also sprinkled with similar atoms along the in- 
ternal margin : the under side of these wings is of a rosy shining 
brown : both surfaces of the inferior wings, including the fringe, 
are of a leaden grey.* 
Reaumur mentions a parasitic fly which sometimes hatches 
from the grains containing the caterpillars or pupae, to the num- 
ber of 20 from one insect ; and Olivier says, " One thing worthy 
of remark is that the moths which hatch in the month of May 
from the grains shut up in the granaries, hasten to get out by the 
windows and to gain the fields, instead of which those that come 
forth immediately after the harvest make no attempt to escape. 
It seems that their instinct informs them that they will then find 
no more provision in the fields for the support of their posterity." f 
The foregoing account will enable those interested, more 
readily to detect the presence of the Little Corn-moth, and the 
following remedies may be equally useful, if applied to other 
grain-feeding insects, even should we be spared from the visita- 
tions of the Butalis, which seems to have made its appearance in 
the United States of America, from specimens sent to Mr. E. 
Doubleday by Dr. Harris of Cambridge, New England. It 
may be as well to state, that the example I have carefully exa- 
mined has black fore-legs, and a black spot near the tip of the 
palpi, characters which I do not find recorded by the French 
naturalists. 
It appears that of the various attempts made to prevent or dimi- 
nish the ravages of this moth, the most effective method is to 
subject the infested grain to the heat of an oven or a very warm 
room. It does not seem to be ascertained what degree of heat 
the grain can endure without losing its germinating powers, 
but it appears that it is preserved at above 70° Reaumur 
(about 190° Fahrenheit). It is not, however, so much the inten- 
sity of the heat, as its continued action for a certain period, which 
kills the caterpillars and chrysalides in the grain, so that from 
45° to 50° during 24 or 36 hours produce more effect than 76° or 
96° for one hour. The difficulty is to maintain an equal tempe- 
rature throughout the operation, and to obviate this, two machines 
have been invented and called '• Insect mills." One, by M. Mar- 
cellin Cadet de Vaux, is a kind of large iron cylinder for roasting 
(bruloir), as simple as the common ones for coffee ; the other, by 
* Having no authentic specimen to describe, I have given the charac- 
ters from Reaumur and Duponche). 
t Encyclopedie Mcthodique, vol. i. p. 115. 
