814 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW YORK 
ANGOUMOIS MOTH. INTRODUCED HERE PROM EUROPE. ITS HABITS. 
the measures for destroying it, is compiled from Reaumur, Curtis, 
and other writers. 
The female moth lays 20 or 30 eggs in a cluster upon a single 
kernel of grain, and this operation is performed in the field be¬ 
fore the grain is fully ripened, as well as in the bins of the 
granary. The eggs are of a bright orange red color, and are 
placed in a line or in little oblong masses in the longitudinal 
channel upon one side of the kernel. The worms hatch in a 
week after the eggs are laid, or sometimes, if the weather be 
moist and warm, in four days. When they come from the eggs 
they are very minute, being scarcely as thick as a hair. The 
first worm which hatches penetrates into the kernel on which the 
cluster is placed, entering it in a little spot between the beard 
and the appendage of the sheath, this being the point where the 
kernel is most tender. The hole it bores is so minute as to be 
imperceptible to the eye. This first born worm having taken 
possession of this kernel, its younger brothers and sisters, as 
they come out of the shell, are obliged to wander off' to seek 
other grains; and when they find them unoccupied, they pierce 
and enter them in the same way, so that each kernel of the grain 
contains but one occupant; and this kernel is sufficient to sup¬ 
port the larva until it arrives at maturity, when it changes to a 
pupa within the grain, having entirely consumed the farina, 
although to the eye the grain appears sound and uninjured. If, 
however, it be taken between the fingers and gently pressed, it 
is found to be soft; and from the feeling, an experienced person 
can discover whether the kernel contains a young larva, in the 
early part of its operations, or a pupa, that has consumed the 
whole of the flour inside of the grain. By washing the grain, 
also, that which is injured is readily detected, by its floating on 
the surface of the water. 
A grain of wheat or of barley contains the exact quantity of 
food that is necessary to nourish and support this worm from its 
birth until its transformation to a pupa. If a grain containing 
a worm bo opened when the insect is near its change, one sees 
there is nothing more than the skin remaining, all the farinaceous 
substance within having been eaten. The cavity contains, in 
addition to the larva, some little brown or yellow grains, which 
are its excrement. And as these grains are found to be fewer in 
number and less in bulk with the old than with the young worms, 
