Home › Volumes › Moths › Tineidae Family
Clothes-moth
There are several species of Tineid insects which attack garments made of woolen fiber and furs. One of the commonest and most widely distributed of these is the insect which we are now considering. In Pennsylvania and in Maryland and southward, so far as observation shows, this is the commonest of the "Clothes-moths." The damage, it is needless to say, is not done by the imago, or perfect insect, but by the larva, or caterpillar. This is represented in all its destructive ugliness in the annexed cut. Its food is animal fibers, and it constructs for itself a cocoon of bits of wool or hair, in which transformation into a pupa finally takes place. It is partial to all animal hair. It feeds upon furs, woolens, carpets, horsehair mattresses, and even to some extent upon silken fabrics, though it has no positive preference for the latter. The insect, like all the others of its class, has been introduced into this country from the Old World. In a separate article the writer will speak of the best method of preventing its ravages.