THE FASTIDIOUS MOTH

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6409, 1 November 1923, Page 5

THE FASTIDIOUS MOTH

HAVOC AMONG CLOTHES. The clothes moth, while working its worst havoc in the early summer, is always with us. If people would only put away their airtight bag or box where every crevice is sealed so that the moth miller cannot seek her haven, then there would be no derangement among the clothes. Madam Moth will not degrade herself by depositing her eggs in any cheaply made clothes. This may appear a strange statement, yet there is nothing strange about it. The moth wants food out of the cloth. The ready made cloth is mostly shoddy. Shoddy is rew T orked wooollen rags, worked over many, many times. All the life and animal matter is eliminated. You might as. well ask cattle to feed on a desert as to ask a moth to feed on such pulp. To keep woollens clean requires frequent whisking with a stiff brush; unless this is done Madam Moth will, despite your efforts and preventatives, instal herself in your best and most costly clothes and deposit her eggs. Moth’s eggs by a gum moisture, attach themselves so firmly to woollen fabrics that shaking a garment or cloth out of doors will not remove them. You no doubt have noted the places where the larvae have eaten clothes. The principal places are the cbat or waistcoat lapel, the dress side of a trouser, under arms and round the necks of dresses. The reason is that the lapels aiy sometimes spotted with soups and greasy matter from the table; the perspiration from the body makes the soiled trouser or dress an ideal feeding ground, hence these spots are Madam Moth Miller’s first choice for depositing her eggs. She selects, only the best qualities. Her eggs number about 50, and they are most minute in size, and they are laid on the same colour as the cloth they are laid on; if on black cloth the egfes are black; 'if on a white cloth then the eggs are white, and so on. '• Any woollen clippings or any clothes that are kept in dark corners are liable to be good breeding places for clothes moth and grub. The larvae or grub is greyish-white, and looks like a caterpillar. This is the fellow that does the real damage. Henry MI Enwright, writing on the subject, notes with amusement how many of us use tar paper, camphor, cedgr and other ingredients to kill the' moth. Once the eggs are laid the larvae becomes acclimatised to the smell of these ingredients, and they develop and go on feeding. The moth miller will refuse to lay her eggs in or about the odour arising from these so-called prevehtatijves, yet when nothing else is about to lay her eggs on she has been known to disregard the disagreable smell and lay her eggs in cedar chests and camphor boxes.