38 THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 
loose threads on the outside of the dark cocoon. The 
body tapers at the anal end to form a little stout spiny 
cylinder. The pupa shows the wing pads, legs, etc. 
The adult is a Bombylid or Bee Fly. David Sharp 
thus describes how Fabre discovered the habits of a 
Bombylid Fly (Argyromoeba), which laid its eggs on the 
mud cells of a Mason Wasp :— 
“Tt entered the cell as a tiny slender worm, through 
a minute orifice or crack, but it is now much increased 
in size, and exit for a creature of its organisation is not 
possible. For some months it remains a quiescent larva 
in’ the cell of the bee, but in spring of the succeeding year 
it undergoes another metamorphosis, and appears as a 
pupa, provided with formidable apparatus for breaking 
down the masonry by which it is imprisoned. The head 
is large, and is covered in front with six hard spines, to 
be used in striking and piercing the masonry. When the 
hole is made in the mud cell the adult escapes from the 
puparium.”’ 
eee 
PLANTS BEARING ROOT NODULES. 
(By A. A. Hamilton.) 
In a review of the symbiotic association occurring in 
certain groups of plants, Mr. W. M. Carne (one of our 
members now on active service in Palestine) published a 
list in this journal (Vol. 2, p. 192) of Australian Legumes 
with bacteria-bearing nodules, and mentioned (p. 198) © 
several families other than Leguminosx, in which these 
nodules occur. Dr. J. B. Cleland, Principal Microbiolo- 
gist to the Board of Health, recently secured an example 
of the ‘‘Lilli Pilli,’’ Eugenia Smithiit, showing these 
nodules. The family Myrtacex, to which the Eugema be- 
longs, is not mentioned in Mr. Carne’s list, and Dr. Cle- 
land’s specimen provides an additional record of this oc- 
currence in Australian plants. An interesting note on 
this subject by Dr. Thos. L. Bancroft, communicated by 
Mr. J. H. Maiden, Government Botanist of New South 
‘Wales, was published in the Proc. Linn. Sey., N.S.W., in 
1893, Vol. 8, p. 51, and illustrated by a series of figures. 
Dr. Bancroft’s note includes several Australian genera of 
the Fam. Leguminose, which are additions to Mr, Carne’s 
