208 
SEHS 
THE CULTIVATOR. July 
REMARKS COT THE GRAIN-MOTH, 
USUALLY TERMED THE FLYING WEEVIL, OF THE MID¬ 
DLE AND WESTERN STATES. 
Luther Tucker, Esq. —About six months since, 
when sending on the amount of my annual subscription 
to your valuable paper, I remarked, that if you wished 
it, I would contribute some facts regarding the Flying 
Weevil. Since that time I have still continued to study 
the habits of the insect, in order, if possible, to discover 
some remedy for the evil, as our wheat crops, in this 
part of the country, during the years 1844 and 1845, had 
suffered severely. Although the article was written 
some months since, detailing the then ascertained facts, 
I delayed sending it for several reasons: On some points 
regarding the insect I was still uncertain, and desired 
to make further experiments. I had also written to 
Mrs. Say, requesting to be informed whether Mr. Say, 
while he resjded here, had described the insect. Al¬ 
though I have received no answer yet to this inquiry, I 
hasten to forward such facts as have come Under my ob¬ 
servation, (without however any accompanying draw¬ 
ings of the insect, as I had intended,) because a friend 
has just put a number of the “ Prairie Farmer” into my 
hands, by which I perceive that Dr. Harris has already 
received specimens of the insect, of which he has also 
made drawings, in all its stages, and calls for farther 
information. My first idea on seeing the paragraph 
was, that the subject being now in such able hands, any 
communication from me would be useless; but on 
second consideration, recollecting that, here, we have 
an opportunity of inspecting the depredations of the 
living insect on a large scale, I have concluded to send 
you such a description of the insect as my limited know¬ 
ledge of Entomology permits me to give; which, if not 
scientific, will, I trust, be found sufficiently accurate to i 
enable my brother farmers to detect the enemy when 
it exists in their crops. To this I shall add, on the 
habits of the insects and the nature of their depreda¬ 
tions, such observations as have been collected by en¬ 
quiries from others, or made personally; concluding 
with some account of the usual remedies for the evil, 
and a suggestion as to a new and if efficacious, easily 
accessible remedy. 
In giving the result of these examinations and experi¬ 
ments, I shall, for the sake of clearness, even at the risk, 
nay almost ■certainty, of being considered tedious, put 
them' as answers to questions, such as I should expect 
persons, unacquainted with the insect and only imperfect¬ 
ly acquainted with entomology, to propose for the sake of 
information. I shall also endeavor to distinguish 
rigidly between ascertained facts and mere conjecture 
or opinion, however such opinion may be warranted by 
circumstantial evidence. 
I. What is the insect like? What are its external 
characteristics ? To the readers of the Cultivator it 
may perhaps be well to mention first what insects 
(already described throughout the various volumes of 
that work) it is not ; and this may afterwards facilitate 
the reply saying what it is. 
It is not the Wheat-worm or Weevil of the eastern 
states, spoken of at pages 23, 73, and 98 in the first vol. 
of the second series of the Cultivator. Nor is it the 
Wheat-fly, ( Cecidomyia destructor) of Great Britain, 
Canada, and other portions of country, described at page 
105 of the above volume. It is not any one of the ene¬ 
mies of the wheat crop mentioned in the 3d volume of 
the Cultivator at pages 65, 111, 118, and 129. 
It is not the Black Weevil (Curculio granarius or 
Calandra granaria) described in the 5th vol., page 121, 
with which most farmers and millers are well acquaint¬ 
ed. Nor is it the Grain-maggot spoken of at page 157 of 
the same volume. 
It is not the Grainworm of Western New-York, de¬ 
scribed in the 6th vol., at page 43. 
Nor is it the European Grain-moth (Tinea granella,) 
mentioned in the 9th volume of the Cultivator, as hav¬ 
ing been described by Dr. Harris, in his work on the 
insects of Massachusetts, injurious to vegetation. 
Then what is it? The insect in question having in 
its perfect state, four scaly or minutely imbricated 
wings, a spiral tongue, and a hairy body, is certainly 
a Lepidopterous insect. That is to say it belongs, 
according to the Linnsean arrangement, to the 
Order Lepidoptera, 
which contains three genera; the Butterflies, the Hawk- 
moths, and the Phalsense, or .Moths. 
That the ravages here in the wheat are committed by 
the worm or larva of a Lepidopterous insect no one 
can doubt, who has seen as I have, the myriads ofmoths 
flying about the grain and threshing machine, while 
threshing out the crop of 1844, and some few in that 
of 1845; hence the popular term applied to them of 
Flying Weevil , as we never see the common black weevil 
Jlying about our wheat. It is they only, however, of 
our wheat enemies which are properly weevil; as that 
term is applied by Entomologists, only to a genus of 
the Coleoptera or hard winged insects, of which the 
black weevil (Curculio granarius ) is one species. [Why 
these black weevils having wings do not fly, I cannot 
say, but this I can testify, that during seven years, 
while I had daily opportunity of examining them; and 
part of which time we were much annoyed'by them, in 
our mill, especially in warm weather, I never yet saw 
one on the wing, or met with an individual who ever 
remembered to have seen one of them flying.] 
We have an additional proof that these moths are the 
insects in question. I have several times hatched them 
out of wheat and corn under large tumblers, and here 
also frequently found the moth, on dissecting the grains 
of wheat, just ready to emerge from the pupa case; 
while in other grains of wheat, I have perceived the 
moth arrested in its progress, probably by cold weather, 
half way out of the opening, which is invariably found 
near the apex of the grain, whenever the insect has 
completed its metamorphoses, and has left, or is about 
leaving its dwelling. 
Our insect belongs, farther, to the 
Genus Phal^na, Moth; 
because its antennae become gradually smaller from 
their base to their tip, instead of which those of butter¬ 
flies are largest at the outer extremity, generally ending 
in a knob; and because its wings are not vertical, as in 
butterflies. Another proof of its being a moth, is that, 
when you view a large heap of weevil eaten grain, in a 
mill, (without disturbing the grain) you usually only 
discover the insects in the day time , on pretty close in¬ 
spection; while on surveying them at night with a 
candle, you are surrounded by them, showing that, like 
most moths, they prefer flying by night. 
The moth genus is sub-divided into 8 groups, fami¬ 
lies or sub-genera, among which are the Noctuce or 
Owlet Moths, and the Tinece, (Destroyers of household 
stuffs.) 
After repeated microscopical observations, believing 
that I found the tongue of the insect somewhat long, 
horny and projecting; farther that the thorax seemed 
crested; the feelers distinct, with the lower joints com¬ 
pressed and the upper naked and cylindrical; and that 
the wings, when at rest, were deflected, I inclined to 
place our moth among the Noctuce. 
But having latterly, through the kindness of Prof. 
Norwood, of Madison, had an opportunity to consult 
Dr. Harris’ work, I perceive that he thinks that the 
fly-weevil of Col. Carter, of Virginia, (evidently our 
flying-weevil,) will prove no other than the destructive 
Angoumois moth, (one of the Tinece.) This insect 
ravaged a province of France of that name, situated near 
the west coast in about latitude 46, many years- since; 
and a description of it, as given by Duhamel, will be 
found in Dr. Harris’s work, at pages 366 and 367. 
Now I am aware how difficult it is for one like my¬ 
self, not versed in entomology, to decide whether the 
minute tongue of an insect is projecting and horny; or 
prominent and membranaceous, (these constituting in 
the Ency. Brit., article Entomology, the grand charac¬ 
teristic differences between the Noctuce and Tinece) with 
other such intricate details. And therefore, although I 
am aided by a tolerable microscope, one lens of which 
