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Dried-currant Moth
This insect, which in many respects closely resembles the preceding species, like it is destructive to stored food-products. It is known to feed upon Zante currants, raisins, cacao-beans, or chocolate-nuts, on flax-seed, flax-meal, and figs. It is regarded as probable that upon occasion it may develop a tendency to feed upon almost any substance which, containing nutriment, accords in its general character with the commodities which have been named. It is especially likely to attack dried fruits of any kind in which there is sugar or oil. That the insect has been introduced from abroad into our fauna is beyond reasonable doubt. Its ravages on the other side of the Atlantic have been described by writers long ago, while its appearance in this country seems to date from about the time of the Atlanta Cotton Exposition.
Just as most of the common weeds in our fields are of European origin, having been brought over in the seeds which were originally imported, or at a later time in the hay and straw which are used to stuff crates and packing-boxes, so many of the destructive insects, which have greatly multiplied in America, are foreign in their origin. It is not without reason that the government maintains a set of officers, whose function it is to inspect vegetable importations for the purpose of quarantining those which appear to be likely to introduce insect pests. Had the custom of quarantining plants been instituted earlier, our farmers would to-day be happier.