314 
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 
[Vol. 11 
The Mediterranean flour moth is also the most common pest of ware¬ 
houses. In several instances we have seen hundreds of sacks of flour 
covered with the fine web that is spun by the larvae as they wander 
about seeking a suitable place to pupate. These same sacks would be 
punctured with holes made by the larvae as they came out and little 
heaps of flour on the sack indicated where other larvae were working. 
In one warehouse nearly 1,000 sacks were thus seriously infested and 
about 2,000 other sacks showed only lighter infestation. The most 
seriously infested lots in the warehouse were those that had been in 
there for several months but one lot of nearly 500 sacks that had been 
in the warehouse only two weeks was heavily infested and the larvae 
were issuing from the sacks in great numbers. This lot was, of course, 
badly infested before it came into the warehouse. 
Fortunately the conditions in this warehouse were not typical of 
those found in most of the others visited. In one other instance we 
found 2,300 sacks of flour quite badly infested, but as a rule only smaller 
lots were found to be badly infested and in many warehouses we found 
very little or no infestation. 
The rice weevil, Calandra oryza L., was found in great numbers in 
some warehouses and was present in smaller numbers in many other 
places. The heaviest infestation was found in a corner of an upper 
floor of a warehouse that was otherwise in fine condition. The beetles 
were first noticed crawling over sacks of flour stored near a window. 
Then it was found that the floor near this window was literally covered 
with the beetles and many were also found crawling over bags of im¬ 
ported rice in the end of the warehouse. 
The source of this trouble was, after a long search, found to be a 
small, old, and evidently forgotten lot of rice stacked back of a larger 
lot that quite hid it. The bags were completely covered with the 
beetles and the floor and nearby bags of rice were also covered with 
masses of weevils that moved about slowly when the flashlight was 
turned on them. 
In another warehouse little heaps of flour on a number of sacks in¬ 
dicated the presence of some insect. Further examination showed 
that inside the sack back of each of the little piles of flour, one of these 
rice weevils was working. A few holes were found showing where the 
weevils had issued from the sacks and some of them were found crawl¬ 
ing about. Three lots of flour in different parts of the warehouse were 
found to be thus infested. Later it was found that these three lots, 
representing different brands of flour, had all come from the same mill 
and the source of the infestation will doubtless be found in the mill. 
Other lots of rice and a few lots of wheat were found to be infested with 
this pest. 
