82 
Trayisactions of the Royal Society of South Africa. 
were conflicting, but several farmers announced excellent results from its 
use. In 1899 D. McAlpine, the plant pathologist of New South Wales, 
secured some of the cultures and pronounced the fungus to be M.racemosus, 
Fres. (9) — that is to say, the same fungus that Hesse claims to have secured 
from artificial cultures of the house-fly fungus. 
Lounsbury sent some of the cultures to Kew in 1900, and Massee (10) 
states that they consisted of pure cultures of a new species of Mucor, which 
he named M. etiosus. In his paper describing this species he gives some 
interesting details of some experiments he carried out with the fungus on 
Feriplaneta aiistralasiae. Cockroaches which were sprinkled with the spores 
or Avhich were made to ingest them died within twenty-four hours. Unfor- 
tunately Massee does not state whether he obtained a typical growth of 
JE. gryJli on the dead insects or not. 
Cultures of the South African locust fungus (so called) were tried on a large 
scale in the United States in 1900 (11), and once again conflicting reports 
of its utility were obtained. On the other hand. Stockman (12) definitely 
states that the Mucor proved useless against locusts in India. 
The writer repeatedly tried to cultivate E, grylli artificially, using the 
methods and media described under E. musca. In no case was a growth of 
M. racemosus or M. etiosus obtained. Fresh conidia, hyphal bodies and 
resting spores were used in these attempts, but only the first two germinated, 
and even these failed to grow in the real sense of the word, as no increase 
in bulk took place. 
Abundant growths of two or three undetermined species of Mucor and 
of a species of Uhizopus were obtained by freely exposing bread-paste and 
potato-slices to the air. The spores of these saprophytic fungi were spread 
over slices of carrot and fed to cockroaches of an undetermined species that 
were common under stones at Cedara. These insects flourished in captivity, 
and none died during the three weeks they were kept under observation, 
although they must all have swallowed myriads of spores in this time. 
Similarly individuals that were liberally sprinkled with spores failed to 
become infected, although kept in a damp atmosphere. On the other hand, 
out of five nymphs that were inoculated with the spores suspended in sterile 
water, four died within three days, and all were found after death to contain 
ovoid and spherical bodies. These bodies were very numerous, some 
occurring singly, but the majority being in chains, and they were apparently 
the cause of death in each case. As a very similar growth was obtained in 
several instances from Mucor spores grown in hanging drops of nutrient 
solutions, it seems legitimate to conclude that the cockroaches in this experi- 
ment were killed by the Mucor spores injected into them. None of the five 
individuals in the control experiment that were inoculated with sterile water 
-died. 
The experiments carried out by the present writer failed to confirm the 
