23 



The common field Mushroom (Agaricus campestris), found wild throughout tho 

 greater part of the world, ranks high as a table delicacy, and is largely cultivated in 

 some countries. Several other species of fungi are also used in considerable quantities ; 

 for instance, the famous Truffle, which grows several inches below the surface of the 

 ground, and requires to be hunted with the aid of dogs trained to scent them out. Many 

 others, likewise very wholesome and palatable, are, however, seldom used because of their 

 resemblance to poisonous varieties. 



We find man not alone in his liking for fungi and his use of them as food. Domestic 

 cattle and many wild animals also relish them and devour species shunned by man. The 

 insect world produces a great variety of species subsisting either in the larval or perfect 

 state, or in both, upon fungus. Often when a fine, fresh-looking, pink-gilled, snowy-clad 

 Mushroom is plucked, the picker finds, much to his disappointment and disgust, that his 

 savoury morsel is already "food for worms." A number of small grubs are feasting 

 within the stalk, and in a few hours the cherished Mushroom becomes a black decaying 

 mass, filled with little maggots. 



A great variety of fungi are similarly attacked and made the banqueting chambers 

 of numerous foes. The tender, short-lived species, such as Mushrooms and Toadstools, 

 decay and perish quickly ; but the harder kinds, growing upon old and dead or fallen 

 trees, harbour their tenants much longer, and preserve their shape and outward comeli- 

 ness even after they have been eaten and withered away inwardly. 



The object of this brief paper is to call the attention of any who have recently com- 

 menced collecting to the fact that fungi are so much frequented by insects, and that 

 many species can be obtained from them with but little trouble. I will therefore briefly 

 mention a few of the numerous Coleoptera which I have taken on or in fungus, not 

 because they are rare beetles, but rather because they may be easily obtained and are 

 well known. 



Megalodacne heros is the finest beetle which I have found feeding upon fungus. It 

 belongs to the Erotylidce, a family known by the large antennal club, formed by an 

 enlargement and flattening of the three last joints. This family is said to be largely 

 developed in tropical America, where its members are mostly leaf -eating beetles, differing 

 in this respect from northern species, which live upon fungi. One day last summer (9th 

 J une) I met with a number of large chocolate-coloured fungi growing upon the roots and 

 bark of the stumps of some large hemlocks recently felled. Hiding in crevices of the 

 bark, or in the damp chips and leaves from amidst which the fungi on the roots were 

 springing, I discovered numerous specimens of this handsome beetle and collected about 

 thirty, which had been recently feeding upon the fungus, as evidenced by the holes 

 gnawed therein. 



The beetles varied much in size, being from four to seven-eighths of an inch long. 

 They are of an elongated oval shape, three times as long as broad. The head, bearing 

 the distinguishing club-tipped antennae, is inserted to the eyes in the almost square 

 thorax. The beetle is broadest across the base of the elytra, which taper gradually and 

 are rounded off" at the tip. Each elytron is marked by two orange patches ; the one at 

 the base is somewhat in the form of a Maltese cross with the lower arm broken off, but 

 varies in diff'erent specimens ; the other is an irregular band about one-third the distance 

 from the tip. With these exceptions the beetle is of a jet black, highly polished, and is 

 a handsome insect. About six weeks later I visited the same locality in the expectation 

 of obtaining some more of these fine beetles, but could find none. In some fresh fungi 

 of the same kind T found numbers of large stout grubs, from one-half to over three- 

 quarters of an inch long, with a broad black band across the top of each segment. They 

 were probably the larvae of this beetle, but as I did not succeed in rearing any of those 

 I took, and could not visit the place again, they may have been those of some fungi- 

 eating Tenebrio, to some larvae of which family they had much resemblance. 



From the same fungi from which I had previously taken the above-mentioned beetles, 

 and which were now hard and dry, I obtained nearly forty specimens of BoUtotherus 

 cornutus, the majority females. This beetle belongs (with the two species next to be 

 described) to the Tenebrionidce, the members of which family live chiefly in or about 

 dead stumps and logs, hiding in crevices or under bark, fungus, and moss. It is a dark 



