JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS. V 



Dr. Buckland, and that the interior was filled with a hard dry 

 whitish matter like the kernel of a nut, and that a very slender 

 tortuous black line ran down the centre of the body, and on each 

 side the trachea was observed at some distance from the outside 

 of the body. Dr. Buckland considered tliat the substance found 

 in the interior of the body of this caterpillar was vegetable, burn- 

 ing with the odour of hay, without any smell of animal matter, 

 being, as he appi-ehended, analogous to the subterraneous plant (be 

 it stem or root or something between both) which produces for 

 its fruit the common mushroom. 



Mr. Westwood also exhibited, from the Collection of Mr. Hope, 

 a large LnmeUicorn larva from South America, from the pectoral 

 surface of the thoracic segments of which a long and slender 

 curved vegetable production was produced nearly equalling the 

 entire body in length* (see Plate VI. fig. 6.) He also noticed, 

 with reference to the disease to which the house-fty is subject, an 

 original article which had appeared in one of the late numbers of 

 the Athenaeum, wherein it was affirmed, from various observa- 

 tions, that the exudation was of an animal nature and the result 

 of plethoric disease, as indeed Kirby and Spense had regarded it. 

 Mr. Yarrell however communicated the following notice drawn 

 up by the Rev. Mr. Berkeley to the opposite effect. 



" I have no doubt that the production about which you inquire 

 is Sporendomena muscce, described first by Fries in his Sy sterna 

 Muscologicorum, three years ago ; it was most abundant here on 

 flies which attached themselves to the ceiling and there died. 

 You will find it noticed in Engl. Flor., Vol. 5, pi. 2, p. 'J50. 

 There is also a notice in Loud. Mag. Nat. Hist. Vol. 7, pp. 530, 

 582 ; and in Ann. des Sci. Nat. New Series. Vol. 5, p. 316. In 

 the Analysis of Memoirs presented to the Academy of Sciences 

 May, 1836, there is an observation upon it by M. Dumeril, who 

 is right in his view, which was called forth by M. Bassi's ac- 

 count of the analogous complaint which is so injurious to silk- 

 worm establishments. There is little doubt the fly is attacked 

 whilst yet living, but the parasite is not fully developed till after 

 death. Other instances are on record of fungi growing upon 

 living animals. You will find some noticed in the article " Dry Rot" 

 in the Penny Cyclopaedia. See Jardine's Mag. of Zool. and Bot. 

 Vol. 2, p. 223 ; and Berkeley's British Fungi, fasc. 3, Sphcena 

 •pedunculata and miliiaris." [And see Trans. Entomol. Soc. 

 Vol. 2 ; Journal of Proceedings, p. Ixiv. and pi. 20, fig. 2.] 



* Mr. G. R. Waterhouse possesses a nearly similar larva attacked by the same 

 or an analogous fungus, but which is branched. 



