ANGUILLULIDiE. 
3 
fresh specimens to Dr. Ritzema Bos, Professor at the State Agricultural 
College, Wageningen, Netherlands, who was good enough to examine 
and report to me on April 18th as follows:— 
“Yesterday I received from Mr. Francis E. Fraser (Woburn) a 
packet of much-diseased Clover-plants from the experimental ground 
of the Agricultural Society, and I have hastened to examine them. 
The stalks and branches were shorter and thicker than in the norma 
Clover plants; the buds particularly were much thicker, and some 
stalks and branches began to decay, or were dying. I found in these 
plants larvas and adult nematoid worms belonging doubtlessly to the 
species Tylenchus devastatrix. In the buds I found them in considerable 
numbers. In the dying parts of the Clover-plants I found also 
Tylenchus devastatrix, but still some other nematoid worms, belonging 
to the ge.nera Diplogaster, Cephalobus , and Rhabditis. But their number 
was small.”—J. R. B. 
This identification of presence of the Tylenchus devastatrix is of 
special interest in connection with previous observations of the pest in 
Clover at Woburn. In the account published in 1889 of the Woburn 
experiments, it is noted at p. 14, relatively to the “ Experiments with 
Clover,” that:— 
. . Clover-sickness appeared in the plots in 1887; as it appeared 
in the various plots, there was no evidence that the manures employed 
had any relation whatever to it. The presence of Tylenchus devastatrix , 
which Mr. Whitehead and Miss Ormerod had found attacking sick 
Clovers, confirmed their opinion that this nematoid was the cause of 
the disease. 
“ The plots were dug up and re-sown in 1888, Trefoil and Lucerne 
taking the places of one of the Red and one of the White Clovers. 
Again Clover-sickness appeared, destroying most of the plants. On 
examination it was found that most of the ‘sick’ plants were all 
injured by the attacks of the same minute worm.” 
“ The plots have been dug up, and re-sown this year with similar 
seeds to those employed in 1888.”* 
With regard to my special record of the above. —On July 8th, 1887, 
Mr. F. E. Fraser forwarded me for examination from the experimental 
farm, Woburn, specimens of diseased Clover, which proved to be 
excellent examples of the peculiar form of diseased growth which may 
be looked on as a characteristic of “stem-sickness,” that is, of the 
diseased state of Clover caused by presence of Tylenchus devastatrix. 
Some of the stems with flowering heads were still to be found, but 
also there were a large number of short barren shoots, about an inch 
long, oval in shape, and with the distorted growth of leaves then merely 
* ‘ Object, Plans, and Results of the Woburn Experiments published by the 
Royal Agricultural Society of England,’ 1889. 
B 2 
