26 
without being disturbed. Some of the elevator legs have been so 
closed up that there was scarcely room for the elevator to travel, 
and many of the spouts have been so completely choked up that 
it was necessary to take them down and remove the web, larvae,, 
and pupae before the stream of stuff could pass through them.” 
The magnitude of the attack depends somewhat on the time of 
the year and upon the nature of the products manufactured. In 
the eastern states, and also in California, the larvae are most 
abundant during the summer months, but in California the climate 
is so even that but little variation is noticed at different times of 
the year. 
The larvae are particularly found of products manufactured from 
rice, and in mills where this is the principal cereal handled that 
department is worse infested than others. Buckwheat flour is 
also a favorite, and the larvae will pass over oatmeal and wheat 
flour in order to get to this product; but in mills where rice and 
buckwheat are not handled, they attack any cereal product. The 
parent insect may deposit her eggs in any part of the mill where 
the young larvae can find food, but in the great majority of cases 
the eggs are laid where the conditions are most favorable for the 
development of the young larvae. The spouts and elevators are 
therefore worse infested than other parts of a mill. In a mill 
where flour is stored in sacks, the female pushes her ovipositor 
through the meshes of the sacks and places her eggs within the 
flour. I have carefully observed this point, and have found that 
three fourths of the eggs are deposited in this way, when such 
places are chosen for their deposition. Such flour may be per¬ 
fectly free from larvae when sent out from the mill, but in a few 
days the young creatures hatch from the eggs within it, and the 
flour is soon matted together and is unfit for use. The larvae get 
into most manufactured products in this manner, the eggs of the 
moth being usually packed with the material. 
It has been reported by some European writers that the larvae 
attack the bolting-cloth, but I have made no similar observations. 
I have found many larvae on and about the screens in mills, but 
have never seen one attack the cloth. In my breeding-cage ex¬ 
periments I have no difficulty whatever in this direction. All my 
cages are covered with fine Swiss muslin, and I have no trouble 
in keeping the larvae within. To see whether, in confinement, 
they would attack bolting-cloth, I procured some of this material from 
a miller in California, and covered two cages with it. The larvae 
matured, and pupated in most cases in the top of the cage, 
usually forming their cocoons on the under surface of the cloth, 
but in no case was it punctured by them. I am of the opinion 
that in the cases reported the injury to the bolting-cloth was due 
to that cosmopolitan creature, the cadelle (Tembnoides mauri- 
ianica). I have seen both larva and adult of this insect cutting 
bolting-cloth, and have found it in every mill I have inspected. 
In California it is known as the “bolting-cloth beetle.” 
The Ephestia larvae thrive best on the more glutinous cereals,, 
but they infest all manufactured foods prepared from wheat, 
oats, rice, Indian corn, and buckwheat, and will attack the grain 
