FIELD AND FOREST. 45 



to our astonishment, the "box was filled with the Ag. melinoides, a small 

 fungus common on lawns and in gardens. How did they get there ? 

 We had been living in the same house for nine years, raising flowers 

 in boxes and pots. No change had been made in the earth from that 

 of previous years, and we had never before seen a fungus of any sort. 



In a few weeks after this the flower border was filled with Ag. 

 melinoides and they continued growing in successive crops until late in 

 the season. Here we thought must be a case of dualism, but we had 

 nothing to prove it further than observation and the circumstances. 



A remarkable case of parasitic fungi once came under our notice in 

 a flower garden. In the centre of a square filled with common flower- 

 ing plants grew a large rose bush, which, as usual, became the habitat 

 of beetles called lady-birds, and the social caterpillars formed a large 

 web or nest. During the season the greatest number of agarics grew 

 up, and in this square fungi raged as an epidemic. The caterpillars 

 were the first to fall victims. Some of them were positively fastened 

 together with mould and those that had life and strength to stray off 

 were stricken down upon the leaves and branches motionless and lifeless. 



The lady-birds, while performing their mission in exterminating the 

 aphidce, also fell victims to fungi, and were found clinging, rather 

 fastened, to the stems lifeless. That these beetles did not die in the, 

 ordinary course of nature was evident, as the elytra were stuck fast to 

 the wings with mould and their bodies were pliable. 



We had a suspicion that this might be a case of dualism, though 

 there was, perhaps, a more just cause for supposing that the parasite 

 from the very first belonged to the parasitic mildew fungi. We had 

 no higher power than a pocket lens and could not ascertain whether it 

 produced fruit. The crowding in of agarics and their proximity to 

 the insects certainly gave rise to and strengthened the suspicion of 

 dualism. We never met with such a wholesale case of parasitic fungi 

 upon insects. The weather was tropical and the atmosphere humid 

 from frequent rain. 



On the first of last July we again had some agarics in the open 

 portico attached to the back building, amongst them the Ag. vermis. 

 On the fifteenth of the month our attention was called to a strange 

 growth in the cellar. Upon investigation we discovered an Ag. vermis 

 growing under the window which fronted the street. This was a 

 distance of at least sixty feet from the spot where the agarics were 



