15G NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 



tile zephyrs, and which will germinate on every vege- 

 table and animal body upon which they may lodge, 

 provided they find there sufficient moisture for vege- 

 tation. If they fall upon the body of the caterpiller, 

 as is probably the case, they will germinate upon it, 

 take root in it, and of course, in developing, will grad- 

 ually destroy the vitality of the animal, and leave no- 

 thing of it, but the dried-up, cork-like body with its 

 vegetating fungus. 



The same phenomenon has been observed in the 

 Silk-worm, which is very often subject to a disease by 

 which its body is completely covered with a white ef- 

 fervescence. The real nature of this distemper was 

 for a long time unknown, and in fact, was never ascer- 

 tained until the year 1835, when Signor Bassi proved 

 it to be a minute fungus, called Botrytis Bassiana, in 

 a state of vegetation, which had by degrees occupied 

 the whole interior of the body, and then burst through 

 the skin. 



The same kind of parasitic growths may occur on 

 the human body, or on any animal or vegetable body, 

 and it is probably the ignorance of these facts that has 

 occasioned so many marvellous and absurd stories by 

 travellers. Simple matters in Science may thus be- 

 come wonderful bug-bears to the uneducated. I sup- 

 pose some would hardly bclive that in the tropics, a 

 mahogany tree will gradually change into a gamboge 



