THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 45 
There are a large number of species of Puccinia, the 
uredo-stage of which cause serious losses to farmers through 
the attack of wheat, oats, barley, and numerous species 
of agricultural grasses. 
C. B. Plowright, a specialist on this group of fungi, 
has drawn attention to the probable serious losses to farm- 
ers in other ways besides the actual loss of the actual 
crop, as will be seen by the following statement published 
several years ago:—‘‘Instances of sheep, and especially 
lambs, having been fed upon rusty pastures or rusty rye- 
grass, have come under notice, in which they were at- 
tacked by a train of symptoms of greater or less severity, 
the most marked feature amongst which is a severe and 
irritating cough.”’ 
The writer asked the question: ‘‘ Will the presence of 
uredo-spores of rusty. grasses set up pulmonary irrita- 
tion, and, if so, how?”’ 
“There is a fact that sheep fed upon rusty pastures 
suffer from severe cough, and it is by no means difficult 
to imagine that the uredo-spores would germinate with 
ereat ease upon the moist mucous membrane of the sheep’s 
bronchial tubes.’’ . 
Although the above statement was published by Plow- 
right as far back as 1882 (vide Gardener’s Chronicle, No- 
vember 25th, p. 691), I have not seen any further re- 
ference to the subject, so cannot say if tests have been 
made to see if there is any actual harm caused through 
sheep or lambs eating rusted crops. The matter is, how- 
ever, highly important, and worthy of investigation, es- 
pecially seeing that it is on record that certain smuts 
in the grains of cereals have been proved to be injurious, 
and that recent investigations show that certain other 
fungi have the power of secreting poisons in the tips of 
their hyphe. 
NOTES ON PORISMUS STRIGATUS. 
By L. Gallard. 
From the ‘‘Naturalist’’ for July last it will be seen 
that from eggs of Porismus strigatus, which were laid in 
captivity, a number of larve had hatched from May 2-6. 
These all moulted a few days after they hatched. They 
fed freely on small moth or beetle larve until July, when 
threé, which were kept in separate tubes, cast another 
moult skin. The dates of these moults ranged from the 
5th to the 18th. On the 18th one of these appeared to 
be full-grown, and actually spun a temporary cocoon in 
