affcclimj the Peas and Beans. 
431 
ample and smolcy ; tlie nerviircs and an oval stigma pitchy ; superior 
with a large marginal and 3 submarginal cells, the second oblong-lanceo- 
late : legs reddish-ochreous, hinder shanks dusky at their tips; feet 
5-jointed, blackish at their tips, the hinder entirely dark: length 
line, ovipositor 4^ ; expanse 3J^ lines. 
I found 2 females alive the beginning of November, and they 
differ little, except in the colour of the legs, from specimens I 
have taken of both sexes on llampstead Heath, the end of 
August. The male resembles the female, with the exception of 
the ovipositor, and the antennae are a little longer. 
I expect the mischief done to the peas and beans, which were 
rendered useless and very offensive, bv the webs and excrement 
of the caterpillars, was owing to the crops being housed in a 
damp state, which caused mouldiness or minute fungi to be 
generated, as fermentation proceeded, amongst the seeds upon 
which the larvae fed ; or when the cotyledons or kernels softened, 
they might become an acceptable sustenance for them, as we learn 
Irom a French writer * that the caterpillars of Tinea sarcitella 
will feed, amongst various things, upon the Boleti of the birch 
and other trees, as well as in the rotten wood, and I am well 
aware that they will live upon the moist parts of corks in wine- 
bottles in cellars. It is therefore very necessary to keep such 
stores as dry and well ventilated as possible, and the more damp 
a place is, the more essential it is to expose seeds, stowed there, 
to the air and light. 
It would be found very beneficial to air in the sun or kiln-dry 
sacks to destroy the innumerable mites, insects, and vermin which 
often infest them; and if sacks were thus kept sweet and clean, 
and were only manufactured of hemp or vegetable thread, I am 
pretty confident they would never be attacked by the Tinea cater- 
})illars. Seedsmen, farmers, and gai'deners should likewise be 
most careful not to use old sacks that have been mended with 
worsted instead of thread, much less any in which wool is spun in 
the material, as I think I have seen in some of foreign manufacture. 
These insects, like all others, may be destroyed by fumigating 
with sulphui', or by allowing turpentine poured into saucers, to 
evaporate in the infested magazines ; but it might be attended with 
danger, and is of little use unless the atmospheric air is entirely 
excluded, by filling every chink in the doors and windows with 
tow. Where small quantities of seeds are required to be kept 
merely in bags or drawers, if they be well dusted with pepper, 
it will preserve them from the attacks of insects, or a few ounces 
of camphor will answer the same purpose. 
Godart's Lepidop. de France. 
