PROCEEDINGS OF THE THIRD ENTOMOLOGICAL MEETING 825 



able for their propagation, a>nd they can be detected easily by the Pasteur 

 method. 



5. In cases of very mild attack when the spores are limited to the 

 gut it is certainly true that the corpuscles may escape detection by the 

 Pasteur method when it is possible to detect them by Mr. Hutchinson's 

 method, but it is open to question how far the ovaries are attacked in 

 such cases. If planont, schizont or meront — the undeveloping forms 

 of pebrine — remain in the ovaries it is natural to expect at least 

 some fully-developed forms also which will be detected at once. 



6 As hereditary infection takes place through the ovaries only any 

 method which does not take them into consideration does not seem to be 

 infallible. 



7. The male parent cannot transmit the disease to the progeny ; 

 therefore the examination of the male is not essential. The sperm of a 

 pebrinized male will exercise the same influence over the progeny as the 

 spores of a pebrinized mother if they are limited to the gut and other 

 organs excluding the ovaries. Pebrine is not hereditary, but only 

 transmitted from mother to the offspring. 



8. Multivoltine mother-moths must be examined within seven or 

 eight daj's after oviposition. In summer many moths dry up in five 

 or six days and during the rains many are decomposed in about three 

 or four days, when it becomes difficult to find out the mid-gut. About 

 10 per cent, of the mother-moths and therefore their eggs have to be 

 thrown away as their guts cannot be taken out on account of decom- 

 position and cb-ying up of the moths. If examination is done according 

 to the Pasteur method the above moths can be examined. If (he examiner 

 takes out any tissue from the body of the moth which is immune to Pebrine 

 spores instead of the mid-gut which is mildly infected with pebrine, he will 

 fail to detect the pebrine spores though the ovaries are attacked ivith them . 

 The gut must be crushed well. If a minute part of it is taken as advistd 

 by Mr. Hutchinson then some pebrinized moths may go undetected. 

 It appears to me that better results would be obtained if the moths are 

 treated and examined as under : — 



On the fourth or fifth day after oviposition a mother-moth should 

 be placed on a thick paper. The middle part of the abdomen betweeji 

 the colon and the mid-gut should be held from behind the paper with 

 the thumb and forefinger of the left hand and the thorax should be 

 caught and separated from the abdomen by means of the thumb and 

 forefinger of the right hand. If the middle part is pressed now, then 

 the ovarian tubes and gut will come out of the interior part of the 

 and the contents of the colon will come out of the anus. (If by 



