( xlix ) 



Mr. Farquliarson's letter and the photograph were sent to 

 Dr. Perkins, who replied April 24 : — 



" I only received your letter of the 21st this morning. I 

 wonder how near the natural size the photograph of the 

 shelters is.* They look quite small things. The fungi look 

 extraordinarily like some of th-e fine parasitic fungi (on 

 Homoptera) with which we are so well acquainted in Honolulu, 

 and in Australia, etc. I wonder whether they do not really 

 spring from the Homoptera themselves. Trees blackened 

 by fungus on Coccid excretions usually swarm with ants in 

 the tropics, so much so that they cannot be beaten for insects 

 without the beater being covered with ants, a most unpleasant 

 thing in some parts of Australia, as I have experienced ! 

 However, the trees often remain black long after the Homo- 

 ptera have gone or are quiescent, and in that case of course 

 the ants no longer affect the trees. I still very much doubt 

 that the shelters are anything more than the usual sort of 

 thing I have observed. Sometimes the ants form a closed-in 

 gallery from top to bottom of a tree, through which they 

 proceed, carrying the Coccids, or they may be built merely as 

 isolated chambers over these. 



" I have published on the remarkable epidemics of these 

 fungous diseases of Homoptera. It looks extraordinary to 

 see trees covered with the bugs, each bristling like a hedgehog 

 with the erect fungous growths (as in the figure sent by you), 

 or, before the vegetation has proceeded thus far, to see the 

 Homoptera sitting in hundreds on the bushes, life-like in 

 appearance, but all dead. We have made cultures of some of 

 these things in Honolulu. If I remember rightly cultures 

 can be raised on honey-dew — I mean the mycelium will grow. 

 We have first-class pathologists in Honolulu (three of them), 

 but previously I used myself to investigate some of the fungous 

 diseases of cane, etc. I cannot just now put my hand on our 

 pathologists' reports on some of these fungi, but I fancy some 

 of them belong to the group referred to in Mr. Farquharson's 

 letter. I should certainly have suggested this had I seen 

 the photograph before." 



It was much to be hoped that Mr. Farquharson would be able 



* The photograph, reproduced above, is probably very nearly of the 

 natural size. E. B. P. 



PROC. ENT. SOC. LOND., II. 1914. D 



