668 Proceedings. 



numbers of spores would also be discharged in the water, and would 

 germinate whenever they came in contact with healthy fish, so that an 

 immense amount of injury had resulted from an apparently insignificant 

 cause. He had paid considerable attention to the fungi infecting certain 

 Coccidse, but had never succeeded in obtaining perithecia ; it was, how- 

 ever, clear that more than one species was to be found, although hitherto 

 nothing had been done in the way of identification. He could not accept 

 Mr. Haskell's opinion that the vegetable caterpillar of New Zealand 

 (Cordyceps rObertsii) had been found in other countries, but believed it to 

 be endemic. The Cordyceps which attacked the larvae of Cicada was a 

 smaller species, much-branched, and of a pale-red tint. A Chinese 

 species (C. sinensis) occurs in such large quantities as to form an article 

 of food. It is tied up in small bunches and sold in the markets. Per- 

 haps the most striking of the fungi growing on large caterpillars is the 

 Cordyceps taylori of Australia, a rare species, with several flattened 

 branches, resembling a miniature stag's horn: it is a prince amongst its 

 congeners. He had seen other kinds of fungi attacking the larvse of 

 beetles, and obtained a large moth infested by a Sphceria, which had 

 filled the abdominal cavity with mycelium, and produced a double or 

 triple row of stipulate perithecia along the entire extent of the abdomen. 

 Mr. Maskell had drawn attention in an interesting manner to a neglected 

 group of curious organisms. He would like to add, with regard to Mr. 

 Maskell's complaint concerning the small amount of attention paid to 

 the study of microscopic plants and animals by the younger members 

 of the community, that a decided impetus would be given to work of this 

 kind by the reintroduction of biology into the course of study at Wellington 

 College. That institution was furnished with good microscopes and a 

 considerable amount of accessory apparatus, as well as with collections 

 of plants, minerals, &c, all of which had been lying idle since the College 

 had ceased to be affiliated with the New Zealand University. 



Mr. Maskell replied briefly to the remarks made, and, in answer to 

 Sir W. Buller. said that, after all, the objection raised by that gentleman 

 was only a splitting of hairs. The thing, for at any rate ninety-nine 

 hundredths of its life, was a caterpillar attacked by a fungus, just as the 

 fly on the window-pane was a fly which the fungus had killed. To sav 

 that when it was dried up and rotten there was then no caterpillar left, 

 seemed to be simply a piece of dialectic distinction, which would have 

 been more valuable if Sir W. Buller had been accustomed to microscopic 

 investigations. He had himself clearly seen the skin of the caterpillar, 

 even in an old specimen, and it appeared to him quite certain that, if that 

 skin was destroyed by a fungus, that fungus was not Cordyceps, but some 

 form of mould. The question raised by Sir W. Buller had absolutely no 

 economic importance, and at its best was an objection so fine-drawn as to 

 be not even important in a scientific sense. 



Mr. Maskell then exhibited specimens under the micro- 

 scope. 



Eleventh Meeting : 28th November, 1894. 

 Mr. W. T. L. Travers in the chair. 



It was announced that, in conformity with the Act, Major- 

 General Schaw had been elected Governor of the New Zealand 

 Institute to represent the incorporated societies for the year 

 1895. 



