THE AGRICULTURAL PESTS OF INDIA. 105 



strength in the last moult, and have not even strength 

 to eat. 



Yellow or flat worms easily die. The flat or mous are 

 soft and indolent worms, become very fat from eating a 

 great deal, and soon die and become putrid. 



The most severe disease, as the most general, is the 

 muscadine. A worm may be eating as usual, when 

 suddenly it becomes a dull white, and not long after dies, 

 becoming reddish and rigid. Twenty-four hours after 

 death a white efflorescence shows itself round the head 

 and rings, and soon after all the body becomes floury. 

 This flour is a fungus, the Botrytis bassiana, of which the 

 mycelium develops itself in the fatty tissue of the cater- 

 pillar, attacks the intestines, and fructifies in the exterior. 

 Some suppose this disease to be contagious. 



The Gattine ailment is an epidemic disease which 

 shows itself from the very beginning of the rearing. The 

 losses it occasions in Europe are very great. The 

 domesticated silk-worms in India are greatly diseased. 



Sitona. A beetle which attacks the stored poppy 

 seed, rice, maize, wheat, barley, and the millets. It is 

 one of the most destructive of the many kinds of insects 

 which affect the granaries of India ; it is about an eighth 

 of an inch long, of a pale chestnut brown colour. The 

 larva forms and perfect forms are alike destructive. 

 J. Scott. 



Sitophilus oryzae, the common rice-weevil of India. 



Snakes, in natural history, are placed in the class 

 Keptilia, and order Ophidia. They are numerous in the 

 East Indies arid in the Eastern seas. All the sea- 

 snakes are poisonous, and dreaded by fishermen. They 

 are classed by naturalists as .the Hydrophidse, and com- 

 prise the genera Acalyptus, Aipysurus, Disteria, Enhydrina, 



