Browning.
THE CLOTHES MOTH.
WE are all of us but too familiar with the ravages of the common “Clothes Moth,” ever busy fretting both our garments and our tempers. We find our cherished furs and woollens—which we fondly imagined we had put away so carefully—utterly ruined by what we emphatically call the moth, as if but one species really existed, and we refuse it our interest and our sympathy. When we find some piece of material containing moth-larvæ, we are usually too intent upon destroying them to bestow much thought upon the habits of the creature; but I have discovered of late that even these moths are so curious as to be well worth a little careful study. I will relate how I came to know something about the life-history of some of the Tineæ, the name by which this species of insect is known.
Many years ago a friend gave me some beautiful grey feathers of birds which he had obtained during a voyage up the Nile. The majority of these feathers had been arranged in my feather-books, but a few remained in a drawer, and on examining them after a lapse of time I found they were shredded and perforated till only fragments were left. Quantities of little grey cases, or cocoons, showed that what had gained access to the feathers was moth. As I was then specially interested in the subject of domestic natural history, the living inmates of our houses, these cases were exactly what I wished to study. Accordingly I made a collection of them and covered them with a glass shade until I should find leisure to observe them more closely. Returning from some other occupation I found the small cases in active motion. A brown head and part of a white grub’s body appeared at one end, and each insect, like the Caddis Worm, was dragging its house after it and seemed able to crawl rapidly about. By gently pressing the tail-end of a cocoon I made the grub come out and leave its case behind, so that I could examine it more particularly. The case was evidently made of shreds of the feathers on which the grub had been feeding, and was lined with fine white silk.
There are understood to be about thirty-one species of Tinea in this country; of these many, when in the larva state, inhabit fungi or rotten wood. One beautiful species is found abundantly in granaries, its larva lives upon corn and resides in a case formed of wheat grains connected together by silken threads. Many of the species of Tineina, the great group to which the genus Tineæ belongs, are leaf-miners and form those white streaks we may often see upon bramble, honeysuckle, and strawberry leaves. The grubs of another kind may be found in Scotland, inhabiting ants’ nests, and even in a coal mine, near Glasgow, Tineæ have been found in abundance.
A very beautiful species of Tinea attacks the bark of the lime-tree until it becomes completely riddled by its destructive grubs. A fine avenue of about two hundred lime-trees forming one of the approaches to the town of Southampton was infested with this insect and the growth of the trees seriously injured by its ravages.
The furrier has cause to dread the ravages of Tinea Pellionella, which feeds on feathers and fur, and is no respecter of priceless sables and ermine. This insect makes its case with atoms of fur cut to the same length, and it works so insidiously that there is no outward sign of its evil doings until little tufts of fur begin to fall off, and then it is too late to save our valued garments. They are sure, sooner or later, to prove hopelessly destroyed.
Stuffed birds and animals can only be preserved from this annoying pest by being soaked in a strong solution of corrosive sublimate or some other poison. That this is effectual I have proved by the safe preservation of groups of stuffed birds which have hung against a wall exposed to the air without protection of any kind for the last twenty-five years; these are as fresh and bright in plumage now as when they were first obtained.