390 . Dr. T. R. Fraser on the Moth of the Esere, 
pillars were enclosed in cocoons, formed in the spaces between 
either contiguous beans or beans and the enclosing paper. 
Fifty out of the eighty beans were found with holes—a few with 
only one, but the majority with various numbers from two to 
eight. The holes were usually of a round-oval form ; they ex-. 
tended through the spermoderm ; they were situated on almost 
any part of the surface of the bean, though generally on the 
sulcus, towards its broad extremity; they had an average dia- 
meter of 4th of an inch; and they had protruding through 
them, from the interior of the bean, a quantity of excrement, 
loosely connected into adhering masses by the silky threads 
already mentioned. 
On breaking the spermoderm, the place of the kernel was 
found to be more or less occupied by excrement, cocoons or their 
broken-up remains, and caterpillars. In the majority of affected 
beans, the kernel was entirely absent; in others, portions. of va- 
rious sizes were left, having often eroded margins and other 
symptoms of the attacks of the caterpillar, and being sometimes 
fantastically irregular in their outlines. In a few instances, and 
generally in such beans as had only one or two perforations. 
throngh the sulcus, the kernel was entire, and a small quantity 
of entangled excrement only was found in the intercotyledonary 
spaces. These beans had probably been occupied, at some 
period, by only temporary boarders. 
The excrement occurred in large quantity in proportion to the — 
number of caterpillars. It consisted of little, dry, stone-grey — 
irregular cylinders, from ;!;th to =3;ths of an inch in length, and 
about ;4,nd of an inch in diameter, and it was always connected 
in loose bundles by the adhesive thready secretion of the cater- 
pillar. The microscopic examination of this excrement showed 
two principal structures—starch-granules, generally broken up, 
having the characteristic appearance of these bodies in the 
kernel of the seed of Physostigma, and occupying about one- 
third of the field, with circular bodies about =,5,th of an inch ~ 
in diameter, having large nuclei and granular contents, and 
occupying the remainder of the field. Chemical examination 
proved the presence of large quantities of uric acid and starch, — 
and of a little ammonia. The uric acid, when precipitated by 
acetic acid from a solution in potash, assumed the form of 
perfect, very minute crystals of either detached or clustered 
rhombs. x 
One or two caterpillars were generally found within each bean; 
only in one bean as many as six were. seen, all of whom were 
alive and active. They are of a pale yellow colour, about ths — 
of an inch in length and 3th in greatest thickness, and have — 
six pectoral, eight abdominal, and two anal feet. . 7 
