THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Vol. XI.] JUNE, 1878. [No. 181. 



NOTES ON CERTAIN PARASITIC FUNGI WHICH 

 ATTACK INSECTS. 



By F. Buchanan White, M.D., F.L.S. 







Ma3iest};a beassic^. 



I RECKNTLY received (through Mr. Carrington) from Mr. 

 H. Sharp, of 10", Hunts v\orth Terrace, Portraan Market, a 

 sketch of a dead larva attacked by a parasitic fungus. In 

 his letter he says that while examining a fern case, last 

 autumn, he found the larva of Maineslra brassicce with 

 fungus attached, of which a figure is given above. 



Mr. Sharp's fungus is the conidiiferous condition of a 

 species of Torrubia, a genus of fungi of which most of the 

 species are parasitic upon insects. The order Lepidoptera is 

 not the only one attacked by species of this genus, for there 

 are records of at least four other orders, viz. Coleoplera, 

 Orthoptera, Hemiplera, and Hymenoptera, having been 

 attacked. One of the earliest accounts of such an occurrence 

 appears in the Philosophical Transactions (for 1763) of the 

 Royal Society, and as it is rather curious I will copy it : — 

 " The vegetable fly is found in the Island Dominica, and 



R 



