90 
The iiitnMlnction of Icerya into the Azores is, according to Professor 
tla Silva, a lact which is of easy exi)lanation. The orange trees in these 
islands, exiK)sed to the danger of being mutilated and torn by the winds, 
have been i)r(>tecte<l by i)lanting <ertain trees around them. Acacia 
mclanoxyUtn and Carhun-arpus larif/atus^ Australiau trees, were choseu 
for this i)urpose. These trees coidd have served to transport the insect. 
There seems some chance, however, that the insect was imj)ortcd as 
early as 1S:{7-.'W at Fayal, but in the opinion of the writer the insect 
which damaged the orange trees at that time was another sj>ecies. 
We have advised the introduction ()\'^^c(1alia c((rdinaUfi int<) Portugal, 
and, through the kindness of the State board of horticulture of Cali- 
fornia, we have been able to send two shipments of this beneficial lady- 
bird to Senhor Alfredo Carlos Le <'oq, of the bureau of agriculture at 
Lisbon. 
A LITTLE-KNOWN TINEII) MOTH OF INDOOR HABITS. 
A little tineid moth catalogued in the " List of Lepidoptera of Boreal 
America" as Tinea ferruginella lluebu., was reared during May of 1896 
from a mass of sweejnngs containing refuse grain, hay, and other similar 
material taken from the tloor of a Washington feed store. About the 
sanie tinje other iiulividuals were noticed flying about the lights in the 
writer's room, and later this species was n(>ticed in abundance at the 
electric lights in the business i)ortion of this city. Captured moths ovi- 
jmsited freely, but for some reason the moth does not appear to have yet 
been reared ah oro neither here nor elsewhere. Among the divisional 
records is one of this species having bred March 4 from dried leaves in 
a rearing jar, and in another instance the adult was reared from the 
larva. 
July 16, 1896, a larva was found by Mr. C. L. Marlatt in its case 
crawling ui)on the floor of the basement of the Department insectary. 
It was confined in a jar with dry clover and similar material, and the 
moth issued August 6. During the first week of September of the 
following year numerous larval cases of this tineid were gathered 
from a difl'erent basement connected with this office. 
The adult insect has been observed commonly indoors at Washington 
from ^March 4 to December 7. It will be seen that it is to be tbund 
nearly the year round, and occurs also most everywhere in habitations 
and in other buildings. 
In Brackenridge Clemens's "Contributions to American Lepidopter- 
ology,'^ published in 1859, this species was described as new under the 
name Tinea crocicapitella^ and in 1882 Lord Walsingham identified this 
with the European BlahophanvsferrmjincUa Iluebn. (Trans. Am. Knt. 
Soc, Vol. X, p. 170). Neither of the above writers mentioned either 
locality, occurrence, or habits, and nothing, so far as the writer is 
aware, has been ])ublished concerning the habits of this species in 
American literature and only brief mention is made of it in foreign 
