Article Nº 3643 Insect, spider or other land arthropod Vol. III · p. 645
Moths
Original title: Traças
Notes the insects (moths, beetles and silverfish) that damage fabrics and books in Madeira and the local remedies used to repel them.
Some species of the genus Tinnea (Lepidoptera) and Demvetes vulpinus (Coleoptera) attack upholstery and woollen fabrics, while in books it is the white larva of an Anobium (Coleoptera) that causes great devastation. A lepisma (Orthoptera), with an elongated, silvery body, also damages books and papers. To drive moths away from the furniture in which clothes are kept, Madeirans use peppers, the calyces and opercula of the eucalyptus, camphor and naphthalene.