76 
COBDYCEPS HAWKESII, Gray. 
By M. C. Cooke. 
In a memoir entitled “ Notices of Insects that are known to 
form the bases of Fungoid Parasites,” by Mr. Gray, of the 
British Museum, privately printed and distributed in 1858, there 
are two figures, with descriptions, of a species of Cordyceps not 
yet recognized in systematic books. That it has distinctive 
features there can be no doubt, and Mr. Gray, considering it to be 
different from the other Australasian species, applied to it the 
above name. This entomophyte is in many particulars readily to 
be distinguished from Cordyceps Gunnii , and like that it is found 
in Tasmania. 
The entire length of the club, and its host, is from five to nine 
inches, of which the fertile club does not occupy an inch. It is 
cylindrical, slightly narrowed and truncate at the apex, dotted with 
the immersed perithecia. The stem is irregular, flexuous, from 
two to four inches long, but slender, and for a great part of its 
length clad with a fulvous woolly coating. It is not thicker than 
a straw in some specimens, and altogether of a much more slender 
habit than Cordyceps Gunnii. Two clubs arise together from the 
same spot in some instances, or from different parts of the same 
caterpillar, and occasionally there are three or four clubs on one 
individual. The internal structure is undoubtedly the same as in 
Cordyceps, but the dimensions of the sporidia are not named. The 
figures given are on Plate V., figures 10 to 12. 
The specimens were obtained by Mr. Hawkes, in Tasmania, in 
the month of April, and after him the species has been named. It 
can scarcely be confounded with Cordyceps Gunnii, for the club is not 
nearly so thick or dark, and has a different form. The stem, besides 
being more slender, is irregular, contorted, and nodulose, besides 
being woolly. From Cordyceps Eobertsii, again, it differs in the 
broader and shorter head, as well as in the character of the stem. 
A comparison of the figures of the two will show that there is no 
difficulty in distinguishing them. To the entomologist, an impor- 
tant difference from both the other species will be recognized in the 
clubs springing from any part of the body of the insect. 
This species has not been noticed in recent mycological works, 
partly on account of the memoir in which it was recorded having 
been privately printed, and hence comparatively unknown, and 
partly from the absence of any definite technical description. 
Although Cordyceps Gunnii appears now and then in different 
localities in Australia, the present species has not as yet been 
recognized outside Tasmania. 
We must, however, advert to the account which Mr. Gray has 
given of this entomophyte from his own point of view, and his 
opinion of the host upon which it establishes itself. “ It bears,” 
