390 Dr. T. R. Fraser on the Moth of the Esere, 



pillars were enclosed in cocoons, formed in the spaces between 

 either contiguous beans or beans and the enclosing paper. 

 Fifty out of the eighty beans were found with holes — a few with 

 only one, but the majority with various numbers from two to 

 eight. The holes were usually of a round-oval form; they ex- 

 tended through the spermoderm ; they were situated on almost 

 any part of the surface of the bean, though generally on the 

 sulcus, towards its broad extremity ; they had an average dia- 

 meter of |th of an inch; and they had protruding through 

 them, from the interior of the bean, a quantity of excrement, 

 loosely connected into adhering masses by the silky threads 

 already mentioned. 



On breaking the spermoderm, the place of the kernel was 

 found to be more or less occupied by excrement, cocoons or their 

 broken-up remains, and caterpillars. In the majority of affected 

 beans, the kernel was entirely absent ; in others, portions of va- 

 rious sizes were left, having often eroded margins and other 

 symptoms of the attacks of the caterpillar, and being sometimes 

 fantastically irregular in their outlines. In a few instances, and 

 generally in such beans as had only one or two perforations 

 through the sulcus, the kernel was entire, and a small quantity 

 of entangled excrement only was found in the intercotyledonary 

 spaces. These beans had probably been occupied, at some 

 period, by only temporary boarders. 



The excrement occurred in large quantity in proportion to the 

 number of caterpillars. It consisted of little, dry, stone-grey 

 irregular cylinders, from -Vth to -nrths of an inch in length, and 

 about -^nOi of an inch in diameter, and it was always connected 

 in loose bundles by the adhesive thready secretion of the cater- 

 pillar. The microscopic examination of this excrement showed 

 two principal structures — starch-granules, generally broken up, 

 having the characteristic appearance of these bodies in the 

 kernel of the seed of Physostigma, and occupying about one- 

 third of the field, with circular bodies about ■4-jvVoth of an inch 

 in diameter, having large nuclei and granular contents, and 

 occupying the remainder of the field. Chemical examination 

 proved the presence of large quantities of uric acid and starch, 

 and of a little ammonia. The uric acid, when precipitated by 

 acetic acid from a solution in potash, assumed the form of 

 perfect, very minute crystals of either detached or clustered 

 rhombs. 



One or two caterpillars were generally found within each bean; 

 only in one bean as many as six were seen, all of whom were 

 alive and active. They are of a pale yellow colour, about fths 

 of an inch in length and ^th in greatest thickness, and have 

 six pectoral, eight abdominal, and two anal feet. 



