( XXV ) 



Obituary. 



The decease was announced of Mr. F, C. Lemann, and Mr. 

 T. P. FuRNivAL, Fellows of tlie Society. 



Exhibitions. 



Melanism in a Beetle. — Mr. F. B. Jennings exhibited on 

 behalf of Mr. R. A. li. Priske a melanic aberration of the 

 stercorarious beetle Ajj/iodins scybalarius, Linn., taken at 

 Deal, in June 1907. The usual colour of the elytra of this 

 species is brownish-testaceous, with two more or less pro- 

 nounced dark patches at the side, and the melanism consisted 

 of an extension of these patches, nearly covering the elytra. 



Fungoid growths on Lepidoptbra. — Mr. E. R. Bankes 

 sent for exhibition :— 



(1) Four specimens of Hejnahcs humuli, L., more or less 

 covered by a sprouting fungoid growth, which was said by 

 the editor of the " Field " newspaper, in 1880, to be possibly 

 an early stage of a species of Clavaria, and to have attacked the 

 moths after death.* Mr, Bankes had only met with eight 

 Lepidopterous imagines thus affected, and had received one 

 from a friend ; all of them appeared to be males of 

 //. huinidi. They were found in the heath district of south- 

 east Dorset, mostly attached to shoots of Ulex europxus, 

 though U. nanus, Calhona violgaris, and Erica ciliaris each 

 yielded a solitary example. 



(2) Many dead larvte of llepialus lujndinus, L., infested 

 with the fungus Cordiceps entoriiorrldza, and received from 



* "It has after death become accidentally covered by a fungoid growth 

 (possibly an early stage of a species of Clavaria), which would have 

 developed just as well if its spores had found a resting-place on any other 

 snfficiently damp substance. It was not the cause of deatli (though a 

 minnte fungus, Eiiipusa munav, very commonly kills flies in autumn, and 

 a prevalent cause of death in silkworms is owing to a fungus). Fungi of 

 the genus Splixria, SphecnUaria, etc., have often l)cen recorded as 

 growing both on the larvas and perfect insects of various Lepidoptera, 

 Coleoptera, Orthoptera, Hemiptcra, and Hymenoptera, both in this country 

 and in Australia, the East and West Indies, North America and else- 

 where. Curiously enough, the late Sir W. J. Hooker has recorded a 

 Clavaria as found on the larva of an Jlc^rialas. In Griffith's edition of 

 Cuvier's 'Animal Kingdom' (Ins., Vol. ii, pi. 137) is a figure of a large 

 hawk-moth covered with Isuria, a parasitic fungus." — From the " Field," 

 1880. 



