347 



(2) By swallowing tlie .adult female parasite filled with eggs, which has been 

 coughed np by some other fowl and which, on account of its reddish color, chickens 

 might mistake for an earth-worm. 



(3) By swallowing earth-worms, which may by chance happen to contain the 

 syngamns eggs or embryos in their digestive tract. 



The knowledge of these three possible modes of infection suggest several very 

 practical means of preventing the spread of this disease: 



(1) As soon as it is noticed that a flock is affected with gapes, Ike infected chickens 

 should at once he isolated and the healthy members of the flock should be placed on 

 other ground where no infection with eggs exists. The infected chicken-yard should 

 not again be used for at least a year. 



(2) Thehodies, or at least the entrails, including the trachea, Inngs, etc., of all animals 

 dying from this disease should be hurned. If the bodies are simply buried the earth- 

 worms may bring the embryos to the surface and thus infect the rest of the flock. 



(3) Poultry yards should be provided with drinking-troughs, so that the fowls 

 will not be obliged to drink water from contaminated and stagnant pools. 



(4) Poultry yards should occasionally be treated with lime in order to destroy the 

 embryos of the parasite. 



(5) During the season in which the disease appears chickens should be kept housed 

 unt'l after the sun is well up, say 8 or 9 o'clock. 



The Clover Mite in Houses. 



I send specimens of a pest which has caused me great trouble for three or four 

 years. About the second week in February thousands of these creatures cover my 

 window sills and panes. When they first appear they are about the size of a pin 

 point. They are then a very bright scarlet. They are now fully grown. For weeks 

 they have covered everything — windows, books, furniture, cushions, and pillows. 

 They are not in sight in the evening. They travel constantly back and forth through 

 the day. About the middle of June they disappear, leaving every crack and crevice 

 filled with a line of white eggs. They often pack solidly in places, and then form a 

 column and march up the casings of the windows. The matter is A-ery serious. Is 

 there any way to determine what they are, and how to be rid of them ? If this pest 

 becomes universal it will certainly cause great trouble. — [Mrs. Francis A. Smith, 

 New York. May 26, 1893. 



Note. — The insect sent was the Clover Mite (Bryobia j^ratensis), a full account of 

 which has been given in Insect Life, vol. in, p. 45. — [Eds. 



The Utilization of Spider Silk. 



I notice in Ixsect Life, vol. v, No. 3, p. 210, a note relative to the silk of spiders, 

 which sums up my experiments and attempts on the subject. The author of the note 

 concludes by remarking that the most important desideratum is the means of obtain- 

 ing or raising the spiders in large numbers. 



R(5aumur, in discussing the attempts of Bon, had raised the same objection. The 

 difficulty now seems to be removed in the case of the large spiders of the genus 

 Nephila of this country. Dr. A. Vinson, in his "£tude sur I'Arachnologie des lies 

 de la Reunion, Maurice et Madagascar " (p. xxiv), remarks that these large spiders 

 "may live in families," and I have myself observed that our "Halabe" of Madagas- 

 car {Nephila madagascariensis) multiplies rapidly and may be obtained in large num- 

 bers, living gregariously in the open air, without any care being taken of them. 

 Not far from Tananarive, at Ambohips, the Catholic mission possesses the begin- 

 ning of a garden of acclimatization and study, in which I lately counted about a 

 hundred of the female "Halabes," already of good size, in the space of about a 

 cubic meter. 



