26 
THE LARGER FUNGI 
recorded : — Anesiellorliina augur, one of the two common brown Australian 
blowflies frequently responsible for blowing sheep and meat, 1ms been grown 
from an agaric, Pleurotu* ftp., collected at Bulli Pass, New South Wales, in 
November, 1917, and left exposed in a laboratory in Sydney for two days (when 
doubtless it was "blown”). Tapeigaster marginifront Bezzi is a long bodied 
dv frequently seen sitting on agarics in South Australia. The species has been 
hatched out from maggots which have developed in the fungi. 
Beetles. — Beetles are not often found on fleshy agarics, but I have noted the 
following occurrences in Australia: — On Flammula purpyrata Rios., Dorrigo, 
New South Wales, January, 1918 (two species) ; on Russula, near R. azurea 
Bros, or R. cyanvxantha (Sehaoff.) Fr., Neutral Bay, Sydney, February, 1918; 
on Plcurotus sp., Bulli Pass, New South Wales, November, 1917 (Staphyl'inidae) ; 
on Paxillus paradoxus (Kalelibr.) Quel., Neutral Bay, February, 1918 (perhaps 
accidental). 
On the woody and corky polypores, beetles are often numerous, leading to the 
rapid destruction of the brackets. Many leave eventually merely a thin shell 
of the denser outer surface and the pore orifices. A small beetle (an und escribed 
<’i id) is a pest in the herbarium. Many members of such families of beetles as 
the Erotylidae, Mycetopliagidae and Oiidae feed on fungi, Our large common 
punk, Poly poms eucalyptomm Fr., with the thin pore surface lemon yellow when 
fresh, soon falls from its lofty position on the trunk of a Eucalypt and will be 
found riddled and sponge-like from tlie excavations of beetle larvae. 
The late Mr. A. M. Lea, Entomologist to the South Australian Museum, has 
kindly supplied the following information as to the principal fungus beetles, 
which are as follows: — 
“ EkotyhidAE. — These are commonly called fungus-beetles; some are small, round 
and blackish, but many are moderately elongated and average jin. in length with 
sharply contrasted markings; they occur on soft bracket and sheet fungi, and 
occasionally on large puff-balls and the harder Polypori. On the northern rivers 
of New South Wales they occur in larger numbers than elsewhere in Australia. 
I have named one, an inch long, perhaps the largest in the world, from Queens- 
land. They are all slow-moving. 
Ex homy chid AE.- — Allied to the Erotylidae but much smaller; few are as big 
as a grain of wheat ; they are all slow-moving - , and usually occur in the same 
situation as the Erotylidae, but a few are to be taken in moss, etc. 
Scawiidiidae. — These are small and extremely active; smaller ones are mostly 
to be taken on sheet fungi under bark, the larger ones (about the size of a 
wheat-grain) on soft bracket fungi; the larger ones are blackish, with conspicuous 
reddish spots. 
Chhae. — T he genus ('is is confined to the hard and dry bracket and sheet 
fungi ; they are all small and slow-moving and may sometimes be taken in large 
numbers by breaking up the fungi; or if these are put away in glass-topped 
boxes and left for a few months or years sometimes hundreds can be obtained 
from a single fungus. 
Stai’IIytjxidae. — T his is an immense family of beetles (the rove-beetles), 
whole genera of which are to be taken on the Polypori, sometimes swarming in 
the tubes; they are very thin, and at first (owing to their short elytra) they do 
not look much like beetles. They also swarm in decaying vegetation, moss, 
carrion, seaweed, etc. 
Trio] lOPTEUYCIlDAE.' — These are the smallest of all beetles; one species, about the 
size of a large full-stop, occurs in thousands on sheet fungi under bark in 
Tasmania, as at Mount Tambourine, and I took a similar, if not identical, species 
on Lord Howe Island. They can be told at once from the Poduridae (many of 
which are equally small and roughly similar in shape) by the way they run, never 
jumping; also if put in spirits they at once sink, but the Poduridae float for some 
time. 1 have taken a few specimens on toadstool fungi. Where they occur at all 
they generally occur in numbers. 
Ten ebriO.v idae. — One sub-family is confined to fungi, usually the more or less 
hard brackets, and there are some weird-looking creatures amongst them, the male 
often armed with conspicuous spines. They are all snuff-coloured and often 
warty, and so closely resemble the fungi that it is usually only by specially looking 
