MOTHS DISLIKE GREEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 76, 29 March 1924, Page 22

MOTHS DISLIKE GREEN.

i Correspondents of a scientific paper, backed by the authority of the great French naturalist Henri Fabre, declare that neither the camphor nor naphthalene which is put in the drawers to drive the moths away by a kind of gas attack has the least effect on them, says a writer in the " Children's Newspaper." Some naturalists doubt if the moths can smell at all! But if they can they are quite indifferent to the smell of the little camphor balls our mothers and sisters put in with our clothes, and naphthalene leaves them quite cold! But there is now said to be a way of keeping off moths, though it is only now being experimented with, and it seems unlikely we shall get it out of Germany at present. It was noted that the grubs of moths seldom eat clothing which is dyed green. The green dye which they do not like and which seems poisonous to them is one of the coal-tar colours. But, of course, we cannot have everything we wear or use dyed green to keep off the moth, so the German chemists have been trying to find a colourless liquid which will have the same moth-repelling qualities as the green dye and yet will not stain cloth. They declare they have found a substance (named Eulan F) which has the same constitution as the green colouring matter in the dye, and which will poison any moth grub, but will not damage any wool or cotton dipped in it.