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living specimen. "The sick larvae of all ages crawl up the herbage 
during the night, and instead of again concealing themselves near the 
ground on the approach of light, as the healthy ones do, ascend as high 
as possible, and if on grass, coil themselves in a horizontal position 
about the apex of the blade, or if on other objects, take a position as 
nearly similar as the shape of the object permits. If disturbed before 
the middle of the forenoon, the majority are still able to crawl, although 
sluggishly ; by noon most of them are quite dead, but unchanged in 
appearance. It will be found that they cling to the leaf with greater 
tenacity than during life Late in the afternoon, the body has 
changed from the normal yellowish or pea-green and smooth appear- 
ance to a velvety gray. The next morning there is only a small, black- 
ened and shriveled mass remaining, while the surrounding foliage is 
powdered with a whitish, clinging dust, composed of the spores of the 
fungus. If some of the dead insects had been placed on a pane of 
glass, and a tumbler inverted over them during the night, they would 
have shrunken less, and been covered with a white fleecy growth, while 
on the glass, surrounding each body, would have been a white halo of 
spores two-thirds of an inch in diameter, such as everyone has ob- 
served about dead flies on the window in autumn. This is the general 
course of this rapid and fatal disease." (J. C. Arthur.) 
This fungus, known as Empiisa (Entomophthora) sphcerospenna 
Fres., is found in the body of the larva as a network of colorless 
branching threads (mycelium) which absorb the fluids of the body; 
some of the branches push thru the ventral wall of the body and attach 
themselves to the nearest surface as holdfasts (rhizoids) ; other 
branches pierce the skin and form a gray velvety coating on the body 
of the larva, and the tips of some of these branches each form a spore 
(conidium), which is finally projected forcibly into the air, to infect 
any other larva that it may happen to hit. These temporary spores 
germinate at once, pushing out one or more threads, which enter the 
host and grow, forming a mycelium. There are also resting spores ; 
these develop within the body of the host and are capable of surviving 
for a longer period than the temporary spores. 
Other and more technical details in regard to the fungus are given 
by J. C. Arthur (Fourth Rep. N. Y. Agr. Exper. Sta., 1885 [1886], pp. 
258-262) and by Thaxter (Mem. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., Vol. IV.. 
1888, pp. 172-175). 
This fungus is by no means dependent upon the clover leaf -weevil 
for its existence, for it has a long list of hosts, representing most of the 
larger orders of insects. The list includes the common cabbage-worm, 
mosquitoes and some other flies, ichneumons, certain leaf-hoppers, etc. 
Fortunately, also, the fungus is widely distributed in America as well 
as in Europe. In this country the ravages of the fungus on the leaf- 
weevil have been reported from nearly every region in which the 
weevil has been injurious. 
