THE BEE-MOTH. 
489 
tween which it is not necessary particularly to notice in this 
place. 
Some moth-worms burrow into leaves, and make winding 
passages in the pulpy substance thereof, under the skin; 
some bore into the stems of plants ; and a few are found 
only on the surface of leaves, or on roots. Living plants, 
however, form but a small part of the food of the Tinese, 
most of which subsist on other substances; and, for this 
reason, they would have been passed by witliout further 
notice, were it not for the depredations of certain species 
on some of our most valuable possessions. Most of these 
pests are foreign insects, and have been introduced into this 
country from abroad; it will not, therefore, be in my power 
to offer anything absolutely new about them. Nevertheless, 
a few remarks on some of the most remarkable or destruc¬ 
tive of these moths may not be wholly useless or unaccept¬ 
able to those persons for whom this treatise was particularly 
desicrned. 
O 
The largest insects of this tribe belong to the group called 
Cra]\ibid^, or Crambians, among which the bee-moth or 
wax-moth is to be placed. This pernicious insect was well 
known to the ancients, and we find it mentioned, under 
the name of Tinea^ in the works of Virgil and Columella,* 
old Roman writers on husbandry. In the winged state, 
the male and female differ so much in size, color, and in 
the form of their fore wings, that they were supposed, by 
Linnaeus and by some other naturalists, to be different spe¬ 
cies, and accordingly received two 
different names.f To avoid confu¬ 
sion, it will be best to adopt the 
scientific name given to the bee-moth 
by Fabricius, who called it Galleria 
oereana (Fig. 240), that is, the wax 
Gralleria, because, in its caterpillar 
* Virgil, Georgia IV. line 246. Columella, Husbandry, Book IX. chap. 14 
t Tortrix cereana^ the male; Tinea mellonella, the female. 
62 
Fig. 240 
