388 Miscellaneous. 



meter. Three out of four specimens subsequently examined con- 

 tained within the abdomen similar spores. No traces of mycelium 

 were visible ; the plants had come to maturity, fruited, and withered 

 away, leaving only the spores. 



The chief question then remaining to be solved was as to the time 

 when the spores were developed, whether before or after the death of 

 the bees. In order, if possible, to determine this, I placed four of 

 the dead bees in circumstances favourable for the germination of the 

 spores, and in about ten days I submitted them again to examina- 

 tion. They were covered with mould, consisting chiefly of a species 

 of Mucor, and one also of Botrytis or Botryosporium. These fungi 

 were clearly extraneous, covering indifferently all parts of the insects, 

 and spreading on the wood on which they were lying. On the ab- 

 domen of all the specimens, and on the clypeus of one of them, grew 

 a fungus wholly unlike the surrounding mould. It was white and 

 very short, and apparently consisted entirely of spores, arranged in a 

 moniliform manner, like the filaments of a stemless Penicillium. 

 These spores resembled those found in the abdomen of the bees, and, 

 I think, proceeded from them. The filaments were most numerous 

 at the junction of the segments. The spores did not, I think, re- 

 semble the globules in Sporendonema muscce of the English flora, 

 neither were they apparently enclosed. 



The Rev. M. J. Berkeley, to whom I sent some of the bees, found, 

 by scraping the interior of the abdomen with a lancet, very minute, 

 curved, linear bodies, which he compares to Vibrios. He also 

 found, mixed with them, globular bodies, but no visible stratum of 

 mould. 



From the peculiar position of the spores within the abdomen of 

 the bees, and from the growth of a fungus from them unlike any of 

 our common forms of Mucedines, I think it probable that the death 

 of the bees was occasioned by the presence of a parasitic fungus. — 

 Proc. Lit. and Phil. Soc. of Liverpool, Session 1857-58. 



On a new species of Toucan. By Mr. J. Gould. 

 Andigena spilorhynchus. 



Crown of the head and back of the neck glossy black ; back, 

 wing-coverts, and margins of the primaries dull sienna-brown ; se- 

 condaries bluish brown ; upper tail-coverts blue strongly tinged with 

 green ; tail slaty blue tinged with green, the four central feathers 

 largely tipped with chestnut ; band across the rump sulphur-yellow ; 

 throat and cheeks white, blending into the light blue of the breast 

 and abdomen ; thighs rich chestnut ; under tail-coverts blood-red ; 

 feet greenish blue, with a lilac tinge on their under surface ; bill black, 

 with a mark of obscure brownish red at the base of the upper man- 

 dible, which, when viewed in front, much resembles the letter W, 

 this colour advancing for a short distance on each side of the culmen 

 and extending down the sides of the base. 



Total length, 18 inches; bill, 3f ; wing, 7 ; tail, 7\ ; tarsi, If. 



Hab. Forest of Beza, on the eastern side of the Cordillera in 

 Ecuador.— Proc. Zool. Soc. March 23, 1858. 



