



278 THE INSECT WORLD. 
is, in certain cantons of France, one of the greatest pests to agri- 
culture. The caterpillar of the Alucita granella undergoes its 
metamorphosis in the interior of grains of barley and of wheat, 
which it devours without being perceived from without. The 
female lays her eggs on the grains of corn before 
they are ripe. From four to six days after, the 
eggs are hatched, and the young caterpillars are 
Fig. 292—Alucita ardly as thick as a hair. Each one takes pos- 
abe a session of a grain of corn, and penetrates into 
it by an imperceptible opening. They eat the flour without 
injuring the teguments of the grain. 
When it has attained its full size it spins itself a cocoon of 
white silk in the interior of the grain, which, after having been 
its lodging and its larder, becomes for some time its tomb. It 
has, however, taken care beforehand to make at the extremity of 
the grain a circular opening, through which the moth may come 
out when the grains have been threshed and stored up in the 
granary. 

It is important to mention the Tineina, not because these 
little moths are beautiful—they are, on the contrary, very dingy 
—but because it is in this group that are found those insects 
which do the greatest damage to our crops. The moths of the 
genus Lineina are very small. Their wings, which are greyish 
or brownish, are generally marked with whitish and yellowish 
spots or lines. These are the little moths which, in our houses, 
burn themselves so frequently in the flames of the candles. 
Their caterpillars are small, voracious, and deserve, on account 
of the damage which they cause, to be compared to rats and 
mice. Furnished with powerful jaws, they destroy everything they 
find in their way, such as woollen stuffs, hair, furs, feathers, 
grain, &e. j 
The T%neina are divisible into three groups: Ist, the species 
hurtful to our stuffs and furs; 2ndly, the species which destroy 
our corn crops; drdly, the phytophagous species, that is to say, 
those which feed on plants. 
In the first sub-division must be classed the Fur moth, the 
Woollen moth, and the Hair moth. 
The Woollen moth is represented in the following figure. Its 



