152 Second Report on Economic Zoology. 
Section II. 
Animals Injurious to Horticulture. 
ANIMALS INJURIOUS TO CULINARY PLANTS. 
Enchytraeus Worms. 
Specimens of Enchytraeus worms were sent by a correspondent 
from Nottingham, where they were doing damage in the soil to 
roots of garden plants. 
The family known as Enchytraeidae belong to the section of 
Olicjochaetc worms known as Microdrili. 
The Microdrili are mostly small in size, and usually aquatic in 
habits. They oviposit at fixed periods ; the egg sacs are large, and 
the clitellum is only one cell thick. 
In all these characters they differ from Macrodrili — the section 
which includes the Earth-worms. 
The family Enchytraeidae contains fifty species and eleven genera. 
They are all small (many minute) ; they never exceed an inch or so in 
length. Some live in salt water, others in fresh water, and some in 
earth ; some are parasitic in plants and do much harm. 
The Aster Worm ( E . parvulus) lodges under the epidermis of the 
roots, and feeds on the juices and tender vegetable substances. They 
are gregarious, quite a colony often being found at one plant. The 
plants are soon destroyed by them. The specimens sent from 
Nottingham belong to an allied species, E. agricola (Friend), which 
also damages roots of plants. 
They may easily be destroyed by watering with either (1) lime 
water, or, better still, (2) a solution of corrosive sublimate. 
Lime water may be prepared by mixing a pound of quicklime to 
a gallon of water ; well mix, and strain off the clear liquid, and water 
well with the same. Corrosive sublimate, at the rate of 1 oz. to 
twenty gallons of water, was suggested to destroy them. 
This quantity did not destroy them all. 
Fresh information was sent — to try 1 oz. of sublimate in six 
gallons of water (1-1000). This will kill the ordinary Earth 
Worms ( Lumbrici ). The Enchytraeus worms are much more delicate 
creatures, and it is surprising that 1 in 3000 did not destroy them all. 
