EDITORIAL. 



AN INTERESTING OCCURRENCE WITH STICKY GRASS: 

 ERAGROSTIS VISCOSA TRIN. 



While sitting on tlie veranda at my home several days ago, my atten- 

 tion was attracted by the pitiful wailing peep of a small chicken. I 

 thought at iirst that it was simply lost and was crying for its mother, 

 but as the wail continued unremittingly for about half an hour, I sent 

 my boy out to find the chick. He returned in a moment bringing a two- 

 iaj old chicken, still peeping. Upon glancing at it I discovered that 

 three flower stalks of sticky grass were firmly attached to its neck, and 

 two more were twisted in the downy feathers under one wing, the hoj 

 in releasing the chick having pulled up the grass. 



It required considerable manipulation to disentangle the down of 

 the chick from the grass, but it is quite certain that it could never have 

 freed itself had not help come as it did. In running along, the chick 

 had evidently become enmeshed by a couple of the grass stalks and then, 

 in its efforts to get free, had involved itself to a more serious extent. 



An examination of the grass shows that when it is in fiower and fruit 

 there exudes from a series of longitudinal pores, beginning from 5 to 10 

 millimeters below the panicle and extending downward for 10 to 15 milli- 

 meters, a viscid substance of gi-eat tenacity. This substance serves 

 the plant primarily for protection against ants and other insects which 

 might climb the stalk and damage or remove the flowers or unripe seeds. 



As Eragrostis viscosa Trin. is very widely distributed in the Philippines 

 as well as in other parts of the Tropics, the possibility of its doing greater 

 damage than would have occurred in this single instance makes its eradica- 

 tion, especially in chicken yards or in other places to which young chickens 

 have access, a problem worthy of consideration. 



CiiAELES S. Banks. 

 85 



