ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 565 



Chroospora. The type of it is a new species, R. sancise-cracis ; and three 

 species are transferred to it from Asperococcus. In the Cyclosporales he 

 treats of two familes. The structure of nearly all the 40 species is 

 figured and described, or discussed. In all there are five new species 

 described. Critical notes of much interest are appended. 



Officinal Algae.* — A Segers-Laureys writes on the composition and 

 the structure of certain officinal algae, species of Fucus and Laminaria, 

 Ohondrus crispus and Corallina officinalis. The structure of each is 

 described, its chemical composition, etc., and the uses to which it is 

 applied. 



Marine Algae of Peru.f — M. A. Howe publishes a work on the 

 marine algse of Peru, a region hitherto but little explored for these plants. 

 The principal collections described were made by R. E. Coker, a fishery 

 expert to the Government of Peru, in 1906, 1907, and 1908. The 

 collecting of alga? was merely incidental to his fishery studies ; but the 

 result was one of the most comprehensive and instructive collections of 

 alga? ever made in S. America. In the Introduction the author gives 

 interesting information regarding nature of climate, economic possi- 

 bilities, and history and bibliography of Peru algre. In Coker's collec- 

 tions are 96 species, representing 67 genera. Twenty-nine species are 

 described as new. The total known flora is now 123 species. Critical 

 notes are appended to each record. The book is well illustrated with 

 text-figures and plates. 



Fungi. 



(By J. Ramsbottom, M.A., P.L.S.) 



Fungus Parasites of Living Insects.! — R. Thaxter, well-known 

 for his studies on the Laboulbeniales, gives an account of some new 

 and peculiar fungi parasitic on living insects, belonging to other 

 groups. Although few in numbers, these parasites belong to several 

 quite unrelated groups, and seem to have adjusted themselves success- 

 fully to the uncertain conditions of life and propagation on rapidly 

 moving living hosts. "The apparent rarity of most of them seems 

 quite remarkable, however, in view of the fact that any such exist ; 

 since, if a certain small number of insects furnish favourable conditions 

 for such development, it is difficult to understand why hosts of other 

 similar insects have not also been similarly parasitized, and why an 

 extensive flora of this nature, or at least one comparable in numerical 

 importance to that of the Laboulbeniales, has not been developed." 

 In comparing the miscellaneous assemblage of forms which are now 

 known to live as external parasites on living insects, it is of interest 

 to note that a great majority, at least, possess a more or less clearly 

 defined blackened foot-like structure, which serves both as an organ of 



* Recueil Inst. Bot. Leo Errera, Bruxelles, ix. (1913) pp. 81-110. 



t Mem. Torrey Bot. Club, sv. (1914) 185 pp. (66 pis. and figs, in text). 



X Bot. Gaz., lviii. (1914) pp. 235-52 (4 pis.). 



