Annual Report for 1893 of the Consulting Botanist. 815 
current volume (pp. 331-9) ; and experiments are being carried on 
with the view of determining whether anything can be applied, 
at a moderate cost, to the land where this disease has prevailed 
which would kill the spores of the plant that causes it. 
A visit was paid to Newton-le- Willows, Lancashire, to study 
the experiments in cross-breeding cereals which have been carried 
on for several years by Messrs. Garton, and a paper on cross- 
breeding has been prepared for the Journal. [See p. 684.] 
W. Carrutiiers. 
ANNUAL REPORT FOR 1893 OF THE ZOOLOGIST. 
Introduction. 
During the past year the advice of the Zoologist has been sought 
with regard to about thirty different animal pests, belonging chiefly to 
the classes of Vermes, Myriapoda, Arachnida, and Insecta. The 
year 1893 would appear, from the applications received, to be charac- 
terised by the remarkably early appearance of the customary noxious 
insects, and the special prevalence of various Aphides, of Red 
Spider, of Surface Caterpillars, and of Gout-fly in barley. These 
characteristics are no doubt due to the exceptionally dry spring, in 
view of which it has been a matter of surprise that the Turnip-fly, 
which usually revels in dry weather, has not been the subject of 
a single inquiry. The number of applications received may, how- 
ever, be no safe indication of the extent to which root crops have 
suffered from a pest which is so thoroughly familiar to British 
farmers. 
“ Gapes” in Fowls. 
Applications have been received with regard to the disease known 
as “ Gapes,” which is the cause of serious annual loss to the breeders 
of poultry and pheasants. The symptoms of attack are a peculiar 
whistling cough, accompanied by a spasmodic stretching of the neck 
and opening of the beak — a characteristic which has given rise to 
the popular name of the disease. Appetite fails, the feathers assume 
a ruffled appearance, and the bird ultimately dies from suffocation 
or exhaustion. The cause of the disease is the presence in the wind- 
pipe of a parasitic Nematode worm of the family Strongylidse — 
Syngamus tracliealis. The windpipe, or trachea , divides at the base 
of the neck into two tubes, known as tie bronchi, which proceed to 
the lungs. In all these tubes, and especially at their junction, the 
parasites congregate, and cause distress, and frequently death, by the 
irritation they set up, or by the actual blocking of the air passages. 
The female of Syngamus tracliealis, when full grown, is a cylin- 
drical worm, about one inch in length, and one-sixteenth of an inch 
in thickness. It has a powerful suctorial mouth at the anterior end, 
