HAY MITES. 



SI 



clearly shown by some having three pairs and some four pairs of 

 legs. — Ed.) 



Reverting again to Mr. Eraser's observations, he remarked : — 

 *' They have been in Rye grass and in meadow-grass this season, but 

 more abundant in the former. During the month of September and 

 early part of October they showed, or appeared to be, at their greatest 

 strength and activity ; after the middle of October they gradually 

 showed less vitality to move or extend, until now (the beginning of 

 November) all life is apparently gone, and the mass of the once living 

 organism has shrunk into less than one-half its original size." 



Looking at the history of this infestation in the light of the infor- 

 mation sent in up to date, it appears to me that the origin of the Mite 

 attack must be in the grassfields. There does not appear to be any 

 other way from which it could get into the cocks, for this reason — that 

 the cocks are made of the hay grass, and whether the Mites are thrown 

 and raked into the cocks in the hay, or come to the cocks from the 

 mowed grass, these Mites equally come from the grass, or from some- 

 thing amongst it. 



In the information given regarding this infestation by Mr. A. D. 

 Michael, the eminent Acarinologist, to whom we were indebted for 

 identification of this species (see ' Farmers' Gazette,' Dublin, Dec. 

 25th, 1886), he mentioned regarding this Mite that it and many of its 

 allies would attack an immense variety of dead and dried animal and 

 vegetable substances, but they did not, so far as his own experience 

 showed, attack either in living condition, except that they appear 

 sometimes to eat small fungoid growths ; neither do they, as a rule, 

 like substances in a state of decomposition. — (A. D. M.) 



There appear to be numbers of things on which the Mites mi(jht 

 live, including pollen of the grass-flowers ; but how to ascertain what 

 it is that they do live on is a matter of no small difficulty under the 

 circumstances, and with creatures which, except in masses, are hardly 

 discernible by the naked eye. 



The absence of heating of the hay which is so customarily mentioned 

 in observations of this infestation might very likely affect amount of 

 the Mite presence. In my own experiences in Gloucestershire where, 

 on my late father's property at Sedbury Park, there was much bay 

 stacked both at the home farm and those of the tenants, it was the 

 custom to get the hay up as soon as possible after cutting, and also 

 heating was carried not unusually to the verge, or sometimes over the 

 verge of safety, I never, in the many years that I observed what was 

 going forward, saw or heard anything of Hay Mite infestation. Why 

 the Mites leave the stacks in these legions, we have no evidence as yet 

 to show. One correspondent suggests that it may be in case of a 

 sweating or slight fermentation of the hay ; from another we have 

 definite notes of this extraordinary Mite exit coinciding with occurrence 



