The President's Address. By Wm. Carruthers. 119 



These chaotic worms are nearly akin to the last species of animals 

 which 1 have placed in my Systema under the genus Chaos. ... I 

 have long been well acquainted with the elastic or jumping seeds of 

 Equisetum described by Staehelin in the Paris Memoirs, and still 

 longer with the elastic seeds (or rather capsules) of ferns in general, 

 known for above a century. These having no real vital motion, are 

 totally different from the vermicular bodies of Fungi, which are truly 

 alive." 



The subject seems to have been laid aside for a while ; for in August 

 of the same year Ellis writes : — " I have not had time to try yours and 

 Baron Munchausen's experiments on the animalcules in the origin of 

 mushrooms and smut in corn ; but have recommended it to the public 

 to try the experiments. As soon as I do I shall communicate my 

 thoughts to you on the subject." Then in his letter dated September 

 8, he says, " I have lately been trying experiments on the seeds of 

 the Fungus called by you Agaricus campestris, and also on those 

 called the Agaricus fimetarius. The minuteness of these bodies 

 obliged me to make use of the first magnifying glasses in the dcuble 

 Microscope. This plainly showed to me that these seeds, though put 

 into water according to your directions, have no animal life of their 

 own, and are only moved about by the animahiila infusoria, which 

 give them such a variety of directions, both circular as well as back- 

 ward and forward, that they appear as if alive." 



" The animalcula are so numerous, and at the same time so 

 pellucid, that without good glasses the most accurate observer may be 

 mistaken. I wait for an opportunity to try the seeds of the Lyco- 

 perda and the dust of the Ustilago in corn." 



Linnaeus still holds to his opinion that fungus spores " are alive 

 in the seed," and in his answer to Ellis, dated October 1767, he 

 says : — 



" I received yours, in which you speak of the living seeds of 

 Fungi, asserting that you have only seen the animalcula infusoria 

 moving the powder of these vegetables. 



" I am not able rightly to understand whether you have actually 

 seen the animalcula or not. If really so, they ought, at the end of 

 fourteen days, to begin to attach themselves to the bottom of the 

 glass, first a solitary one, then several more adjoining to it, till almost 

 all of them are thus become fixed, after winch they grow up into 

 Fungi. 



" With respect to the animalcula infusoria themselves, unless I 

 am totally mistaken, I think I have seen these to be the living seeds 

 of mould, Mucor. But before I venture to put forth such an opinion, 

 I beg of you to lend me your lynx-like eyes ; and you will see in the 

 vessel or glass, where there is so little water that it may soon evapo- 

 rate, whether these bodies do not change to plants of Mucor. This 

 point is of the greatest importance, and if my ideas be correct, we 

 shall no longer be surprised at the quantity of such animalcula in 



