THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



137 



a system and laws exactly the reverse of 

 those in other monastic establishments. 

 Among the details of this project it is men- 

 tioned there was to be, on the lands of the 

 Abbey, a row of houses of the extent of 

 half a league, very neat and cleanly. Therein 

 should dwell the goldsmiths, lapidaries, jew- 

 elers, embroiderers, tailors, gold-drawers, 

 velvet weavers, tapestry-makers and up- 

 holsterers, " who wrought there every one 

 in his own trade, and all for the aforesaid 

 jolly friars and nuns of the new stamp. 

 They were furnished with matter and stuff 

 from the hands of Seigneur Nausiclete, 

 who every year brought them seven ships 

 from the Perlas and Cannibal Islands, la- 

 den with ingots of gold, with raw silk, 

 with pearls and precious stones." 



The display of silken garments and of 

 general richness of dress reached its climax 

 in the sixteenth century, on the Field of 

 the Cloth of Gold, where Henry VIII of 

 England and Francis I of France met, and 

 the nobles of both kingdoms vied with 

 one another in extravagance of this kind. 

 It is however related of King Henry that 

 he was so scantily supplied with silken hose 

 that he could not wear it except on gala 

 days. His daughter Elizabeth was not so 

 straitened. She was, indeed, a Flora Mc- 

 Flimsey in the abundance and variety of 

 her dresses, and being presented with a 

 pair of black silk knit stockings in the 

 third year of her reign, she declared that 

 thereafter she would wear no other kind ; 

 and to that resolution she adhered. But 

 ladies' hose in the days of Good Queen 

 Bess was far more elaborate than at the 

 present day. Philip Stubbes, in " The 

 Anatomie of Abuses," thus describes the 

 article : " Their netherbockes and stock- 

 ings in like manner are either of silke, 

 jeansey, worsted, crewell, or at least of as 

 fine yearne, thread or clothe, as is possi- 

 ble to be hadde. Yea they are not ashamed 

 to weare hose of all kinds of chaungeable 

 colours, as green, red, white, russet, tawney 

 and els what. Then these delicate hosen 

 must be cunningly knit and curiously in- 

 dented in every point with quirkes, clockes, 

 open seame,and everything els accordingly." 



The spread of the silk industry since the 

 Elizabethan era has been marked by a va- 

 riety of incidents well worth narrating, but 

 they are too near us in point of time to be 

 accounted as legendary lore. 



THE WHITE GRUB FUNGUS. 



BV THE EDI- 



As this is one of those natural phenom- 

 ena which always attract the attention of 

 the curious, and as it is one which we quite 

 frequently receive for determination, we 

 [Fig. 53.1 ^^''1^ endeavor to give such 



facts regarding it as are 

 now known, more particu- 

 larly as we have recently 

 received it from Mr. P. J_ 

 Mell, Jr., of the State Ag- 

 ricultural and Mechanical 

 College, Auburn, Ala., un- 

 der the belief that he had 

 made a recent discovery 

 and with the statement that 

 he intended to publish an 

 account of it under the 

 name of Torrubia hasta. 

 We do not know how far 

 back accounts of this fun- 

 gus may have been pub- 

 lished, but it has been re- 

 peatedly referred to during 

 the past 15 or 20 years in 

 the agricultural journals 

 of the time, as will at once 

 be seen by the list of ref- 

 erences which we give at 

 the end of this article. 

 This list will also show 

 that the fungus occurs over 

 a large extent of the United 

 States, and its distribution 

 is probably co-extensive 

 with that of the larva which 

 it attacks. This is ordi- 

 narily the common White 

 Grub, or larva of Lach- 

 white Grub.Fungus nostemu fusca, but in re- 

 (after Riley). gions whcre this species is 

 replaced by allied species of the same ge- 

 nus the fungus will no doubt be found 



