64 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



Botrytis, but I prefer to leave that point for the present un- 

 determined. A similar fungus was found on larvae of the Codlin 

 Moth at the School of Horticulture, Burnley, by Mr. Hill, and if 

 it should turn out to be a parasite preying upon the living and 

 causing their death, then it might become of great economic 

 importance if the spores were used to propogate the fungus upon 

 the larvae of injurious insects. 



2. ISARIA SURMATODES, M'Alp. (u. Sp.) 



A fungus growing upon a grub belonging to one of the 

 Melolonthidae was handed to me by Mr. Kershaw, of the 

 Natural History Museum, Melbourne, for determination. The 

 entomophyte proceeded from the under surface of the head, just 

 immediately behind the mouth, and a specimen grew out on 

 each side. They were slender, stiff, and strong, curving out- 

 wards like a horn, and of a dirty fawn colour. One specimen 

 forked at the end of the horn-like curve, one of the branches 

 projecting forward and downward relatively to the grub, about 

 ^ of an inch, twisting about in worm-like fashion and ter- 

 minating in a blunt end of equal thickness with the rest. The 

 other branch curved over the twisted one to the other side of the 

 grub and terminated bluntly. The second specimen was com- 

 paratively short, projecting forward only about ^/^^ of an inch, 

 and resembling a miniature antler of which one branch was 

 broken off, leaving a knob. Microscopic examination revealed 

 minute spherical, colourless conidia at the tips of the hyphse 

 towards the blunt ends, averaging about 3 /n. in diameter. 



There is a Cordyceps described by Tulasne on a species of 

 Melolontha — viz., Cordyceps melolonthce (Tulasne," Select. Fung.," 

 carp, iii., p. 12, pi. i., fig. 32, 1865) — and popularly known as 

 the Cockchafer Club, but the clubs are simple, and swollen 

 above into a clavate head. This may be a conidial condition of 

 some species of Cordyceps, but we have only evidence of its 

 being an Isaria, and I propose to call it Isaria surmatodes, the 

 specific name from the Greek, on account of its slender, stiff, 

 wiry nature. It was found at St. Kilda (a suburb of Melbourne) 

 about twenty years ago. 



ON A METHOD FOR MOUNTING SMALL INSECTS 

 FOR THE CABINET. 



The method of mounting small insects set on fine pins which is 

 known as staging has been adopted by most of our leading 

 systematic entomologists. Briefly, it consists in fixing the pin 

 passed through the specimen into a block of soft substance 

 mounted at some height up a stout pin, by means of which the 



