REPOJRT ON THE DISEASES OP SILKWORMS IN INDIA 9 



sprinkled over the skin of caterpillars affected by it) But in reality 

 this is by no means one of the most characteristic features of the 

 disease, at least in India. Some of the older names such as 

 " maladies des petits" or " atrophie," signifying the uneven growth 

 of the worms, would have been much more suitable, but the name 

 is now much too well established to be changed. The Bengali 

 name Kata or Matha-Kata is said by Mukerji (1899) to refer to the 

 pale colour that is said to be characteristic of pebrinised worms in 

 India. 



(Worms suffering from pebrine do not show any symptoms visible 

 to the naked eye until the disease is far advanced. Then it is seen 

 that the worms become more and more unequal in size — some 

 growing normally while others remain very small. The worms are 

 sluggish and slow and irregular in passing their moults, and are said 

 to be paler or"more translucent than healthy ones. There may be 

 considerable mortality among them, and then it will be found that 

 the dead worms do not become at once rotten and soft but tend 

 to be dry and rather firm.^ In some cases the black spots referred 

 to above are found, but in India these are not very common. The 

 spots are irregular in form and very dark brown to black in colour. 

 They are to be found all over the body (Plate I, figs. 2 and 5). 

 (The most characteristic feature of this disease, however, is the 

 v'presence, in different parts of the diseased caterpillar's body, but 

 especially in its gut, of numerous minute oval bodies, which are the 

 spores of the parasite which causes the diseased A full account of 

 these and the life-history of the parasite will be given below. (Should 

 caterpillars affected with this disease spin cocoons — and the majority 

 frequently do so — the cocoons will be flimsy and poor, and the 

 moths which cut out of them may be deformed (Plate I, fig. 3) 

 with small, often scorched looking, wings and distorted antennae, 

 and what is much more serious, the eggs laid by the moths are 

 laid irregularly, marly do not hateh and of those that do many may 

 give rise to diseased caterpillars^ 



History o£ the disease. It is, I think, very important that 

 the history of this disease should be thoroughly well known, for 

 there seems to be an idea in India that it is a recent thing, at all 

 events in this country. Thus in Geoghegan's " Some account of 

 Silk in India," 1880 Ed., it is stated that " no epizoic such as the 

 ' muscardine ' and the ' pebrine,' which have devastated France 

 and Italy, has as yet appeared in India." N. G. Mukerji reported 

 in January 1888 "that while flacherie, grasserie and muscardine 

 have always been known in Bengal (note that Geoghegan evidently 

 had not heard of muscardine in India, showing how reliable thtse 

 -statements are) pebrine has only appeared within the last ten or 



