498 
LEl’IDOPTEKA. 
tenths of an inch in length, and are of a light ochre or 
buff color, with a reddish head. When about six weeks 
old, they leave the grain, and get into cracks, or around 
the sides of corn-bins, and each one then makes itself a 
little oval pod or cocoon, about as large as a grain of wheat. 
The insects of the first brood, as before said, come out of 
their cocoons, in the winged form, in July and August, 
and lay their eggs for another brood ; the others remain 
unchanged in their cocoons, through the winter, and take 
the chrysalis form in March or April following. Three 
weeks afterwards, the shining brown chrysalis forces itself 
part way out of the cocoon, by the help of some little sharp 
points on its tail, and bursts open at the other end, so as 
to allow the moth therein confined to come forth. 
From various statements, deficient however in exactness, 
that have appeared in some of our agricultural journals, 
I am led to think that this corn-moth, or an insect much 
like it in its habits, prevails in all parts of the country, 
and that it has generally been mistaken for the grain-weevil. 
Many years ago I remember to have seen oats and shelled 
corn (maize) affected in the way above described ; and Dr. 
Asa Fitch has favored me with a grain-moth, obtained in 
a flour-mill at East Greenwich, New York, which agreed 
with the descriptions and figures of the European Tinea 
granella. In some remarks upon this insect in the Albany 
“Cultivator,” for January, 1847, he states that the Amer- 
ican insect was observed to make its cocoon within the 
webs among the grain, instead of retiring therefrom when 
about to undergo its transformations. The habits of the 
European grain-moth are probably sometimes varied; for, 
although most writers on its history agree in saying that 
the insect leaves the grain and conceals itself in crevices 
of the granary when preparing to make its cocoon, Olivier* 
expressly states that it undergoes its transformation in its 
web among the grain. 
* Encyclopedic Methodique, Insectcs, Tom. IV. p. 114. 
