pg_hba.conf problem

I have run into a problem with the vanilla pg_hba.conf with 7.34.  While most 
normal local operations work as they ought, I found that when attempting use 
postgresqs from GRASS that an error was returned due to a problem with the 
pg_hba.conf file.  The error message is:

LOG:  parse_hba: invalid syntax in pg_hba.conf file at line 45, token "TYPE"
FATAL:  Missing or erroneous pg_hba.conf file, see postmaster log for details

The problem is that line 45 reads as follows:

# TYPE  DATABASE    USER        IP-ADDRESS        IP-MASK           METHOD

It seems to be a comment describing the datastructure that follows it.  This 
is the basic pg_hba.conf that is created when initdb is run and has not been 
modified in any way.  

I am running grass on the same system that I am running postgresql on and 
there are no networking issues that I need to resolve, or at least I don't 
think so.

John