820 PROCEEDINGS OF THE THIRD ENTOMOLOGICAL MEETING 



the gut is examined drop by drop till all the juice is exhausted. This 

 will take about an hour for examining a single moth ; but there 

 is no earthly use to have such a strict examination unless especially 

 required for some experimental purposes. Pebrine cannot be eradicated 

 once for all. It is sure to come in the next generation through 

 leaves. The Pasteur system is defective in this sense if any one want& 

 to use the word. 



Views expressed by Various Authorities. 



Infection may take place through (1) heredity, i.e., from mother- 

 moth to egg-cell which is developed into an embryo, (2) food and so 

 throuo-h the alimentary canal, and through (3) wounds in the chitin in 

 the caterpillar stage. 



It appears that there is no difference between the organism (pebrine) 

 in the silkworms of India and of other countries. No one in India has 

 found anything which is unlike that of other countries although the 

 European varieties when attacked with pebrine, show pencil marks 

 on the skin, but the worms of India, Siam, China and Japan generally 

 do not show these spots. The life-history of Nosema hombycis (pebrine) 

 seems to be the same in all countries and in all stages. The pebrine cor- 

 puscles in Indian silkworms are a little smaller than those of Euroi^e. 



1. Heredity Infection through mother. 

 " The egg of a pebrinized mother-moth carries the germ of pebrine 

 in consequence of the parasitic gro\\-th of the organism in the female 

 generative organ. The spore is often parasitic to the egg-cell and is 

 often enveloped by the shell while the egg develops ; otherwise, it atta- 

 ches itself to the surface of the egg." {Vide The Silk Industry of Japan 

 by I. Honda, Director of the Imperial Tokyo Sericultural Institute, 

 1909, page 120.) According to Dr. C. Sasaki, Professor of Sericulture 

 and Entomology at the Agricultural College, Tokyo Imperial University, 

 in his letter to me of the 25th June 1918, " Pebrine is not hereditary, 

 but only transmitted from mother to the offsprings. The spores are 

 found in any part of the embryo and not confined to a particular part. 

 The spores germinate in every tissue of the silkworms when they are 

 introduced from the infected eggs, but when a non-infected or healthy 

 worm receives the spores in its stomach, then they will germinate in the 

 stomach." But according to Monsieur F. Lambert, Director of the 

 Station Sericicole, Montpellier, in his letter to me of the 23rd April 1918, 

 " L ' invahissement du ver par les corpuscles de la pebrine commence 

 toujours par le tube digestif, meme dans la transmission par le papillon. 



