FUNGI. 347 
it produces on the skin, has appeared among silk- 
worms. The mortality arising from this cause has 
severely crippled the silk industries in the south 
of France. In 1858 the silk crop was reduced to 
a third of its former amount ; and up till the last 
-year or two it has never attained half the yield of 
1853. This devastating cholera-like pebrine is 
caused by the growth and multiplication of a 
microscopic fungus, called by Lebert Pazhisto- 
phyton, which appears as a multitude of extremely 
minute cylindrical corpuscles abounding in every 
tissue and organ of the silk-worm, and even pass- 
ing into the undeveloped eggs of the female moth. 
The further development of this obscure organism 
has not been recorded. 
But it is not only insects, and other creatures of 
inferior organization in the larva state, that are 
thus subject to the attacks of parasitic fungi. They 
even enter the water—an element in which they 
are seldom found, and where they always refuse 
to develop themselves normally—and prey upon 
frogs, fishes, and other tenants of the deep. The 
Achlya prolifera is one of the most remarkable 
of these fungi. It is supposed to be only an 
aquatic form of the common fly-fungus or muscar- 
dine already described. Every one who has kept 
gold-fishes must be familiar with this great enemy 
of his favourites. It consists of numerous trans- 
