Though it has incurred the bitter condemnation of all housewives, the
clothes moth is quite an interesting little body from the naturalist’s
point of view. The species known in the United States bears the long
name Pellionella. Its larva constructs a case for its occupancy. The
moths themselves are very small and well fitted for making their way
through minute holes and chinks. The mother insect deposits her eggs in
or near such material as will be best adapted for food for the young.
Further, she distributes them so that there may be a plentiful supply
and enough room for each.
When one of the scattered family issues from the egg its first care is
to provide itself with a home, or more correctly speaking, a dress.
Having decided upon a proper site it cuts out a filament of cloth and
places it on a line with its body. Another is cut and placed parallel
with the first. The two are then bound together by a few threads of silk
from the caterpillar’s own body. The same process is repeated with other
hairs until the little creature has made a fabric of some thickness.
This it extends until it is large enough to cover its whole body. It
chooses the longer threads for the outside and finishes the inner side
by a closely woven tapestry of silk. The dress being complete, the larva
begins to feed on the material of the cloth.
When it outgrows its clothes, which happens in the course of time, it
proceeds to enlarge them. With the dexterity of a tailor it slits the
coat, or case, on the two opposite sides, and inserts two pieces of the
requisite size. All this is managed without the least exposure of its
body. Neither side being slit all at once. Concealed in its movable silk
lined roll it spends the summer plying its sharp reaping hooks amid the
harvest of tapestry.
In the fall it ceases to eat, fixes its habitation, and lies torpid
during the winter. With the early spring it changes to a chrysalis
within its case, and in about twenty days thereafter it emerges as a
winged moth, which flies about in the evening until it has found a mate
and is ready to lay eggs.
Louise Jamison.