Length of the male about one-twelfth of an inch, of the female one-tenth to one-fifth of an inch (according to the size of the galls in which the eelworms develop). The wheat eelworm is the cause of “ear cockles,” also known as “peppercorns” and “purples.” In several parts of the ear short thick dark brown galls (Fig. 133), resembling the seeds of corn-cockle, are found instead of wheat grains. Inside the thick brown shell there is a yellowish white mass, containing hundreds or even thousands of eelworm larvæ (one thirty-first to one twenty-seventh of an inch long). These are quite dry and rigid, but gradually revive on moistening, even if the black galls have remained twenty years in the dried-up condition. When the wheat is ripe the dark-walled galls are gathered in with the crop, and in many cases are sown again with the sound grains. The brown shell then decays, and the eelworm larvæ leave the gall, travelling to a neighbouring wheat seedling, where they live between leaf-sheath and haulm, also penetrating into the terminal bud. The haulm of a wheat plant infested by many eelworms remains relatively short, the leaves are often sharply bent and have wavy margins. Wheat plants thus infested closely resemble rye plants diseased in a similar way, but are much less deformed. This is because the wheat eelworms do not reproduce till they reach the ear, and there is consequently only one generation per year, while several generations of eelworms succeed one another in the same rye plant. The eelworms quickly travel from all parts of the plants into the ears, and get into the rudiments of the flowers, causing them to swell up like bladders, and their walls to become first dark green, and then dark brown. Sixteen to twenty eelworms are present in the lowest flowers of the ear, ten to twelve in those higher up (and therefore smaller), and four to six in the topmost (smallest) ones. Soon after entering the flowers the eelworms become sexually mature, and lay eggs (600 to 1600), from which are developed the larvæ that inhabit later on the cockle-seed like galls. The disease is known in England, Germany, France, and Italy, and is especially harmful in Saxony, where it sometimes attacks a quarter of the wheat crop. _Remedies_: Either there should be no ear cockles in the seed corn, or else the eelworms should be destroyed in them. The infested grain may either be put through a sieve, or else soaked for twenty-four hours in weak sulphuric acid (one pint strong acid to thirty-three gallons of water), when many of the galls float and can be skimmed off, while the eelworms are killed in those which sink. [Illustration: FIG. 134. (_For Description, see note[4], next page._) ] Footnote 4: