Bugbane

P: A cockroach gets a new skin, which serves as its skeleton, seven times before reaching maturity.

P: There are more ants in the world than any other kind of living creature.

P: It is mathematically possible for a pair of houseflies to have two trillion descendants in one season.

P: A dozen or more generations of plant lice can be hatched without the services of a male.

Such facts as these emanated last week from the meeting of the National Association of Insecticide & Disinfectant Manufacturers in Chicago. Especially interested were the bugbane men in an estimate that the yearly damage done in the U. S. by clothes moths amounts to some $200,000,000.

The common clothes moth, which goes under the full-dress name of Tineola bisselliella Hummel, is an oyster-colored insect with a wingspread of about 1/2 in. The larvae look like chestnut worms, eat furs, feathers and wool, spin translucent tubes in which they spend most of their time. They also spin webs on their feeding grounds, and, finally, cocoons from which the moths emerge. They may be inactivated by naphthalene in flakes or moth balls, sunlight, air, cedar chests, mothproof paper bags, temperatures below 40DEG. Under the Federal Insecticide Act it is a crime to sell (in interstate commerce) anti-moth products which do not live up to their claims. Last month the Food & Drug Administration had fines imposed on a Chicago chemical company for shipping 1) moth-proofing crystals which analysis showed to be 58% common salt; 2) colored and perfumed naphthalene blocks which did not, as claimed, kill germs and eliminate unpleasant odors.

Collins & Aikman Corp., Philadelphia upholstery makers, have a moth research laboratory and a corps of collectors who get 5-c- for each specimen brought in. The insects are kept in dark, insulated, electrically heated rooms, fed choice animal yarns, pitted against experimental proofing compounds. The company guarantees its moth-proofed fabrics for five years with contracts underwritten by an affiliate of Aetna Life Insurance Co.

Clothes moths notoriously do more damage in late spring and summer than in winter. At Cornell, however, Entomologist Grace Hall Griswold has shown that the insect breeds all year around. It occurred to shy, elderly Miss Griswold, as to many another investigator, that the dryness of U. S. homes in winter may be what deters moths' winter activities. If this is so, she reasoned, the blessing of air-conditioning would also be a blessing for moths. Miss Griswold and a young associate named Mary Frances Crowell rigged a number of jars in which five different humidities, ranging from 20% to 93%, were maintained by means of saturated salts. In these containers moth larvae were hatched, fed on fishmeal. The Misses Griswold & Crowell found that more larvae reached maturity at 75% humidity than at any other.

A bait intended to lure moths away from clothing has been put on the market by a Wisconsin manufacturer. Called "Moth Wool," it consists of a package of blue woolen fabric, contains a chemical which kills the eggs laid in it, costs 95-c-. What the secret of its attraction is the maker refuses to reveal.

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