14 THE NORTH AMERICAN SLIME-MOULDS 



Further than this ; if Plasmodium malaria be indeed a Slime- 

 mould, and be, as is alleged, the promoting cause and agent in 

 malarial fever, then the group entire suddenly springs to most 

 unusual interest in the attention of all mankind. 1 Aside from 

 the injurious tendencies possible or real of these two, I know 

 not that all other Slime-moulds of all the world, taken all 

 together, affect in any slightest measure the hap or fortune 

 of man or nation. And yet, if in the economic relations of 

 things, man's intellectual life is to be considered, then surely 

 come the uncertain Slime-moulds, with their fascinating prob- 

 lems proffered still in forms of unapproachable delicacy and 

 beauty, not without inspiration. 



COLLECTION AND CARE OF SLIME-MOULD MATERIAL 



On this subject a word may here be appropriate. As just 

 now intimated specimens may be taken at the appropriate 

 season in almost any or every locality. Beginning with the 

 latter part of May or first of June, in the Northern states, 

 plasmodia are to be found everywhere on piles of organic refuse : 

 in the woods, especially about fallen and rotting logs, undis- 

 turbed piles of leaves, beds of moss, stumps, nor less in the 

 open field where piles of straw or herbaceous matter of any 

 sort sinks in undisturbed decay. Within fifty years tree-plant- 

 ing in all the prairie states has greatly extended the range 

 of many more definitely woodland species, so that species of 

 Stemonitis, for instance, are common in the groves on farms 

 far into Nebraska and Dakota. In any locality the plasmodia 

 pass rapidly to fruit, but not infrequently a plasmodium in 

 June will be succeeded in the same place by others of the 

 same species, on and on, until the cold of approaching winter 

 checks all vital phenomena. The process of fruiting should be 

 watched as far as possible and, for herbarium material, allowed 

 to pass to perfection in the field. 



1 See, inter al., U.S. Senate Misc. Doc., " Report on Cholera in Europe and India," 

 pp. 688 et seq. 



