THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. ' 141 



of Victoria," vol. xii. (new series), p. 59, from which you will 

 understand that the males moult in spring as a general act, and 

 again in autumn on a smaller scale. Point casting does not 

 take place in the black-backed section, and a complete fall of 

 quills and contour feathers is effected twice a year. That the 

 quills fall is specially interesting to us, because Mr. A, H. Evans, 

 in the " Cambridge Natural History — Birds," page 5, writes of the 

 spring moult affecting the smaller feathers only. 



TWO MALLEE FUNGI. 



By D. M'Alpine. 



(Bead he/ore the Field Naftiralisis' Club of Victoria, I'Sth Nov., 1899.) 



During the recent visit of Mr. C. French, jun., to the Mallee 

 he found several fungi, notwithstanding the drought and the 

 dried-up appearance of the herbage when he was there, in October. 

 Two are here recorded, one of which is new to science and the 

 other on a new host-plant for Victoria. 



1. The one found on Native Tobacco, Nicotiana suaveolens, 

 Lehm., is of some economic interest, since it has been found that 

 diseases of Native Tobacco may pass to the cultivated plant and 

 cause considerable damage. Tobacco Mould is a case in point, 

 caused by Feronospora hyoscyami, De Bary, and which has even 

 threatened the existence of the industry in Australia, although it 

 is now being successfully treated at the Government Tobacco 

 Farm, Edi, Victoria. It was considered passing strange that 

 a fungus disease should virulently attack the cultivated 

 Tobacco in a comparatively new country like Australia, while in 

 America the " weed " had been long and extensively grown with- 

 out any such fungus. The discovery of this fungus on the Native 

 Tobacco at Myrniong by Mr. C. C. Brittlebank probably accounts 

 for its appearance, and the genial climate, with its heat and 

 moisture producing the too well-known " muggy " weather, would 

 encourage its rapid and extensive spread. 



There are several other instances tending to show that some of 

 our new plant diseases at least are derived originally from native 

 plants, and the fungus, passing from them to the more delicately 

 nurtured and well-nourished cultivated plants belonging to the 

 same family, finds a more congenial home and a more liberal host. 



Fortunately the present fungus, Septoria tahacina, n. sp., has 

 not yet spread to the cultivated tobacco, but it shows, what is so 

 difficult to impress upon growers and their advisers, that even the 

 fungi on so-called weeds are well worthy of study from an 

 economic point of view, since they may some day become a 

 menace to an important industry, if not carefully watched and 

 guarded against. 



2. Fuccinia hieracii, Mart., or a form of it, has only hitherto 



