peridia and sporangia of Fungals.

In the specimen first examined there were no other indications of the
growth of any parasite; but from the interior of the abdomen of a second
bee I obtained an abundance of well-defined globular bodies resembling
the spores of a fungus, varying in size from .00016 to .00012 in. Three
out of four specimens subsequently examined contained similar spores
within the abdomen. No traces of a mycelium were visible; the plants had
come to maturity, fruited, and withered away, leaving only the spores.

The chief question then remaining to be solved was as to the time when
the spores were developed; whether before or after the death of the
bees. In order, if possible, to determine this, I placed four of the
dead bees in circumstances favourable for the germination of the spores,
and in about ten days I submitted them again to examination. They were
covered with mould, consisting chiefly of a species of _Mucor_, and one
also of _Botrytis_ or _Botryosporium_. These fungi were clearly
extraneous, covering indifferently all parts of the insects, and
spreading on the wood on which they were lying. On the abdomen of all
the specimens, and on the clypeus of one of them, grew a fungus wholly
unlike the surrounding mould. It was white and very short, and
apparently consisted entirely of spores arranged in a moniliform manner,
like the fertile filaments of a stemless _Penicillium_. These spores
resembled those found in the abdomen of the Bees, and proceeded I think,
from them. The filaments were most numerous at the junction of the
segments. The spores did not resemble the globules in _Sporendonema
muscae_ of the English Flora, neither were they apparently enclosed.

The Rev. M. J. Berkeley, to whom I sent some of the bees, procured, by
scraping the interior of the abdomen with a lancet, very minute, curved
linear bodies from 1/8000 to 1/10000 in. long, which he compares to
Vibrios. He also found mixed with them globular bodies, but no visible
stratum of mould.

From the peculiar position of the supposed spores within the abdomen of
the bees, and from the subsequent growth of a fungus unlike any of our
common forms of Mucedines, I think it probable that the death of the
bees was occasioned by the presence of a parasitic fungus.

Notice of the occurrence of recent Worm Tracks in the Upper Part of the
London Clay Formation near Highgate. By JOHN W. WETHERELL. Communicated
by JAMES YATES, Esq., M