162 



circumstauces favourable for the germination of the 

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

 examination. They were covered with mould, consisting 

 chiefly of a species of mucor, and one also of hotrytis or 

 hotr-yosporium. These fungi were clearly extraneous, 

 covering indifferently all parts of the insects, and spread- 

 ing on the wood on which they were lying. On the 

 abdomen of all the specimens, and on the chypens 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 siaxxAe^?, penciUum. These 

 spores resembled those found in the abdomen of the 

 bees, and did, I think, proceed fi'om them. The filaments 

 were most numerous at the junction of the segments. The 

 spores did not, I think, resemble the globules in sporendo- 

 neina muscce of the English flora, neither were they appa- 

 rently 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 mucedmes, I 

 think it probable that the death of the bees was occasioned 

 by the presence of a parasitic fungus. 



At the conclusion of the paper, Mr. Higgins observed 

 that other insects were subject to the attacks of fungi. 

 A common instance was the small house fly, which was 

 often to bo seen attached by its proboscis to the window, 

 and surrounded by a little white dewiness. This was the 

 effect of fvmgus, Avhich lodged in the body of the insect, 

 and in the course of time made its way through tho 



