OP SOUTH AUSTRALIA. 
27 
for them or breaking the fungus up that they are found. Their headquarters 
in Australia are the Ilia warm district to South Queensland, but a few occur in 
Tasmania and Western Australia, always in heavily timbered districts. 
In rotting fungi also a good many species are to be taken, but many of these 
are general carrion feeders. A few fliers feed on rusts and smuts in the larval 
stages, and one fairly large beetle, Lagria grandis, regularly in Tasmania eats the 
sori of black spot (but it also eats fruit, etc.). 
On the whole 1 think I have myself material to record at least 200 species of 
fungus beetles.” 
Spring-tails (Collembola). — These are frequently found on the fleshy agarics. 
I have noted them on the following in New South Wales : — Psalliota arvrnsis 
Sehaeff., var. frag mils Clel. et Cheel, Blayney, December; Psttocybe foenisecii 
(Pers.) Fr., Sydney, December; Lact grins seriflms (DC.) Fr., Neutral Bay, 
November; Cortinarius sp., Neutral Bay, October (two species); Pleurotm sp., 
Dorrig'o, .January. In South Australia they have been seen on PsalUota cam 
pest tic (L.), the common mushroom, Encounter Bay, April, and llygmphorus 
emdidus Cke. et Mass., Encounter Bay, May. Brachystomella par rul a Schff. has 
been identified specifically from decaying mushrooms at Encounter Bay, May. 
192!), and Tlypogastrurii armada Nie. from a small toadstool, Glen Osmond, July, 
1 92.9. 
Earwig. — An earwig was found in cavities in the black Ascomycete, 
Daldinia concent rk-a, Bolt., at Malanganee, near Casino, New South Wales, August. 
Ants. — One of the firm puff-balls, Scleroderma flavidum, which take some days 
to mature, harboured a little colony of ants at lvendall, New South Wales, in 
December. These, when examined by Mr. J. Clark, of Melbourne, turned out to 
be a new species near Solenopsis beliia riits Ford. 
Mites. — Minute mites, often very long-logged, may sometimes be seen 
running over the gills of agarics. 
INTERESTING PHENOMENA MANIFESTED BY CERTAIN 
SPECIES. 
LUMINESCENCE. 
Luminescence, commonly walled phosphorescence, is a well-known but not 
common phenomenon in both the animal and vegetable kingdoms. The fire-flies 
(really beetles) common in the tropics arc to be seen in the Blue Mountains of 
Now South Wales, glow-worms (the larvae of beetles) common with ns in damp 
soil in the autumn, and the luminous organs of certain deep-sea fishes, are examples 
in the animal kingdom in which this phenomenon is manifested. A beautiful 
little luminescent crustacean was seen at Encounter Bay in 1.929. Amongst 
plants some bacteria, which have gained access to fleshy food such as cleaned fish 
and are multiplying therein, may give rise to luminescence, and a similnr 
appearance may be seen sometimes in the mycelium or even in the fruiting bodies 
of various fungi. 
Amongst the higher fungi, several species of agarics are known from various 
parts of the world, such as Borneo, Brazil, and Australia, which show this 
phenomenon. The species with us, known as Plevrotus lampas Berk., is quite a 
common one and may be met with in all the southern Australian States where 
Eucalyptus forests occur. These agarics are very large, with a whitish cap some- 
times tinted with brown, yellow brown, bronze or bluish black, with ample cream- 
coloured gills that are decurrent down the stem, and with the thick firm stem 
not usually centrally placed under the cap, but more or less to one side. They 
grow together in hunches at or near the liases of Eucalypts (gum-trees) and the 
bunch may weigh several pounds. Probably everyone who has any acquaintance 
with our gum-tree forests, and especially if they have walked through them at 
night, is acquainted with the species and lias seen it glowing with its pah- 
whitish light at the butts of trees, and has carried portions back and examined 
them later in a dark room. In the fresh state, the gills emit quite a strong 
white light, sufficient to read the time by on a watch. This light may be seen 
shining through the cap when this is thin, giving a weird and fairy -like appear- 
ance to the whole fungus. The glow, gradually fading, may be manifested for 
several nights. James Drummond, the botanist, writing from Swan River (now 
Perth), seems to have been tire first to record this phenomenon in our 
