350 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



have met with is the development of a yellow mould 

 within the cerebral cavity of golden pheasants, which 

 soon proved fatal'; whilst Dr. Murie 1 has found fungus- 

 growths within the abdomino-pleural membrane of a 

 Kittiwake gull, of a great white-crested cockatoo, and 

 of a rough-legged buzzard. Well developed fungi have 

 been found, moreover, within the uninjured eggs of 

 birds and serpents by Cantoni 2 , Rayer, Robin 3 , and 

 others ; and this not merely just within the shell and 

 its living membrane, but growing from the surface of 

 the yolk itself. 



Certain insects, moreover, are not unfrequently the 

 seats of remarkable parasitic growths, which, although 

 they may after a time manifest themselves externally, 

 either take origin in, or at all events start in their 

 development from, some internal portion of the body, 

 and are unknown to exist in any other situations. This 

 is the case, for instance, with the strange Sphterea 

 Robert si which grows from a caterpillar (Heptalus vire- 

 scens) in New Zealand ; with Sphterea entomorhtza which 

 appears in pairs from the middle line of the back, at 

 the junction of the thorax and abdomen, in many of the 

 West Indian beetles j and with many other anomalous 

 growths which have from time to time been met with 

 upon members of the insect world. 



1 See abstract of his communication in ' Report of British Association,' 

 1871. 



2 'Rendiconti di Lombardo,' Nov. 1867. 



3 See his ' Vegetaux Parasites,' Plate ii. Figs. 5 and 6, and Plate iv. 

 Fig. 9. 



