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MONOGRAPH OF THE LABOULBENIACE^E. 



his classic "Histoire Naturelle des Vegetaux Parasites," in which, for the first time, 

 the vegetable nature of these organisms was recognized. In this work two species are 

 enumerated, for the reception of which the new genus Laboulbenia Montagne et C. Robin 

 (e familia Pyrenomycetum novum genus) was erected ; the generic name being selected 

 in honor of the entomologist Laboulbene, who was, perhaps, the first to observe the 

 L. Rougetii of these authors, which occurs on species of Brachinus in Europe. The 

 second form, L. Guerinu, was obtained from a South American species of the aquatic 

 genus Ggretes, and both are figured and described at considerable length. Although 

 the spores are described, no mention is made of their origin ; while the perithecia are 

 spoken of as sporangia. It is, therefore, somewhat uncertain what this author's views 

 really were in regard to the position and relation of the forms described, although 

 the comment " Genus sphoeriaceum, maxime singulare, entomogenum, quoad perithe- 

 cium Capnodio analoguin " would lead one to suppose that it was thought to be 

 ascis^erous. 



Robin's materials were received in part, however, from the entomologist Rouget, 

 to whom belongs the credit of the first published note on these parasites, which, as 

 early as 1850, three years before the publication of Robin, he had described and 

 figured in the " Annales de la Societe Entomologique de France," under the title " Note 

 sur une production parasite observe sur le Brachinus crepitans." He did not, however, 

 recognize the true character of the organisms described, nor did he distinguish several 

 different species which he must have had before him, if one may judge from the 

 diversity of the hosts on which he states that he had observed this " production para- 

 site." It may be mentioned also that in 1852 still another species of Laboulbenia was 

 observed by Mayr, the L. JYebrice described many years after by Peyritsch, and was 

 supposed by him to be a pathological condition of the insects chitinous integument. 



During the next sixteen years little of importance was published concerning the 

 group ; but it is of interest to note that Prof. H. A. Hagen, in his well-known mono- 

 graph of the Termites, mentions that he had observed on the larva of a worker of 

 Termes bellicosus a Laboulbenia closely resembling the L. Guerinii of Robin, concerning 

 which a further note will be found in connection with the subsequently described 

 L. Hageni. In 1857 also, Kolenati, in a paper entitled " Epizoa der Nycteribien," 

 described certain parasites on these wingless flies, which infest various species of 

 bats, placing them among the worms in a new genus to which he gave the name 

 Arthrorhjnchus, including two supposed species, A. Diesingii and A. Westrumbii. Two 

 years later (1859) Diesing, in his "Revision der Rhyngoden," made these two forms 

 the types of a new tribe of Vermes, the Arthrorhgngoclea 3 , characterized by a quite 



