18 CORN AND GRASS. 



known to attack Bombyx mori and Liparis {Ocneria) monacha,'^ In 

 reply to my enquiries as to the characteristics of this disease, which I 

 had never had the opportunity of studying, Dr. Eitzema Bos was good 

 enough to give me the following introductory explanation: — "The 

 phenomena of the 'flacherie' are — 1st, the larvge have no more 

 appetite ; 2nd, they do not eat more ; 3rd, they become weak (' schlaff ' 

 in German), and when they walk on a leaf or a branch they attach 

 themselves with one or two pairs of feet ; and so the weak body hangs. 

 Soon it shrivels, and only in the lowest part of the hanging body a 

 brown liquid is found, so that this lowest part is thick, the other part 

 of the body thin. The larvae which are attacked by the 'flacherie' 

 become totally disorganised, and the disorganised parts of the body 

 change into a brown liquid, which contains a very great number of 

 little oil bulbs, and also different species of Bacteria." — J. R. B. 



The method of action of the disease is stated to be the beating of 

 the dorsal vessel becoming slower, then a green drop appearing at the 

 mouth of the caterpillar, and the worm secreting a dirty liquid, which 

 soils the anal orifice and closes it. The skin shortly begins to shrivel 

 and draw in round the part of the body between the claw-legs and the 

 sucker-legs, and at this point the body begins to turn brown and then 

 black, and the whole worm is soon in an advanced state of putrefaction. 

 Masses of undigested food will be found in the intestines, and amongst 

 the parasites usually attending putrefaction are a special bacillus, and 

 what is called a chain-ferment, scientifically the Streptococcus bomhycis 

 of Bechamp.* 



The precise cause of the death of the caterpillar is stated to be from 

 the gases evolved by the fermentation of the food, followed by diarrhoea, 

 and the closing of the anal orifice bursting the walls of the intestines. 

 In an account of bad attack to Eri silkworms, considered at the time 

 to be undoubtedly of " flacherie,"! it is stated that when just about 

 the age for spinning their cocoons they stretched back their heads and 

 necks, "reached" several times, and with a good deal of difficulty 

 vomited a thick shiny fluid (of a dirty white colour), and soon died. 



* The above short notice of some of the main characteristics of the disease 

 such as are noticeable by ordinary observers without the help of high microscopic 

 powers are mainly taken from the 'Ninth Bulletin of the U.S.A. Department of 

 Agriculture ' (sixth edition), 1886, and also ' Indian Museum Notes,' vol. i. No. 3, 

 Calcutta, 1890, pp. 144, 145. In these will be found much useful information on 

 the subject ; and in the U. S. A. Eeport, by Prof. 0. V. Eiley, quotations from, and 

 references to, the work of Pasteur, 'Etudes sur les maladies des vers a sole,' 

 and that of Maillot, ' Lemons sur les vers k soie du murier,' and other writers. The 

 ' Indian Museum Notes ' at pages referred to are mainly, as mentioned by Mr. E. A. 

 Cotes, the compiler, a digest of the U. S. A. Eeport, and, it may be added, in very 

 useful form. 



t See 'Indian Museum Notes,' vol. i. No. 4, p. 200. 



