216 
was estimated five years ago to have amounted to £150,000 sterling. The species 
is perhaps the most widely distributed of known insects, being found in all quar- 
ters of the globe where grain is used, but is more injurious in tropical climes than 
in our own country, where, though it ranges from Alaska to Florida, it does its great- 
est damage in the Southern States. A correspondent estimates that there is an 
annual loss of $1,000,000 from this insect in Texas alone. 
This insect appears in nearly all the cereal exhibits of tropical countries, as of 
Guatemala, Costa Rica, Mexico, Trinidad, Curacao, British Guiana, Brazil, Paraguay, 
Uruguay, Ecuador, and Argentine Republic, of this continent; and in Cape of Good 
Hope, Liberia, Orange Free State, Tunis, Siain, New Caledonia, Ceylon, and Java of 
the Eastern Hemisphere, and Australia. 
It is particularly abundant in and about the vicinity of the Wisconsin and Min- 
nesota sections in the Agricultural Building of the Exposition, and there is no doubt 
but that it was brought to the World's Fair from most of the countries mentioned, 
having existed in the egg or larva state before the grain was shipped. 
The Rice Weevil infests grain of all kinds, seeming to thrive best in wheat, but 
attacking also maize, rice, Kaffir corn, and beans. 
The mature Rice Weevil is a small, elongated beetle, about one-eighth of an inch 
long, dark brown in color, with four reddish spots at the corner of the wing cases. 
The female lays her eggs in the kernels of the grain, and the young are small, 
whitish grubs or larvae, which, after transforming to the pupa state, issue as perfect 
beetles again. The species breeds rapidly and one generation follows another in 
from three to eight weeks, according to temperature. The egg-laying period of a 
single female continues through several weeks, and as there are from six to eight 
broods annually, the remarkable rapidity with which grain is ruined is not to be 
wondered at. This species is particularly bad in the Southern States and is grad- 
ually replacing the other species of its genus similarly known to infest grains. 
No. 2, or the Angoumois Grain Moth, likewise abounds in southern grain fields and 
granaries, but is less injurious as we go northward. It is supposed to be of South 
European origin, but has been known in this country since 1728. It derives its pop- 
ular name from the great destruction which it caused in the province of Angoumois, 
France, a little more than a century ago. It is a moth of a very light, grayish color, 
with four wings, more or less spotted with black. It measures about half an inch 
across with wings expanded and about a quarter of an inch in length with the wings 
closed. The eggs are delicate, pale red in color, with prismatic reflections, and they 
are laid in sheltered positions, as in the longitudinal grooves and the membranes 
which the different grains afford. The young are small, white, active worms, Avith 
a dark head, moving about actively by means of legs and spinning a silken thread. 
This species, which is also cosmopolitan, is found in almost all the exhibits and 
is, in fact, flying all over the grounds. 
Of all the insects belonging to the second category, [List also ommitted] a large 
number were found dead, and either died in the herbs, drugs, or other products in 
which they were found, since the Exposition opened or before they were shipped 
from the countries from which the exhibits were sent. 
A certain number of the species, all those except the four last named, belong to 
those species which have already obtained a limited foothold in North America, or 
from which there is little to fear; while the small balance (Nos. 31, 32, 33, and 34) 
are of species either heretofore unrecorded in North America or not sufficiently 
studied to intelligently report upon, as some of the species can not be accurately 
determined without comparisons, which it is impossible to make in Chicago from 
lack of accessible collections. It is to this last limited list that I would draw your 
special attention. 
