ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 447 



Sporothrix Schenckii.* — A. Foulerton remarks that Sporothrix 

 Schenckii is a recent addition to the list of pathogenic mould-fungi. It 

 produces lymphangitis, abscesses, and ulceration. In the pus are found 

 -ovoid bodies, and cultivations yield a mould-fungus. When animals 

 are inoculated with cultures, only spore-forms are reproduced ; hence it 

 would appear that the spore-forms are capable of reproduction as such. 

 These spores have some resemblance to the " yeast-form " of Oidium 

 albicans, which in some media can be cultivated as such, but when 

 transferred to different substrata, a development of mycele occurs. 



Mycetozoa. 



Affinities of the Mycetozoa.j — £. W. Olive argues against the 

 theory of the location of the Mycetozoa in the animal kingdom 

 advocated by De Bary. If we assume that the pseudoplasmode of the 

 Myxobacteriaceae indicates a genetic connection with that of the 

 Acrasiese, then the Mycetozoa have affinities with higher plants through 

 the Bacteria, which are evidently derived forms of fission-algas. 



Culture of Myxomycetes. :j: — N. Ensch calls attention to several 

 interesting points of structure and development observed in the cultiva- 

 tion of Myxomycetes on artificial media. If Chondrioderma difforme 

 is grown on sterilised stems and leaves of Vicia faba, the plasmodes 

 are formed only on the plant, never on the glass ; the myxamcebae appear, 

 therefore, to result from the influence of a chemotatic irritation exercised 

 by the plant. The myxamoebae can be cultivated for a considerable 

 period without becoming converted into plasmodes. The spores of 

 .Chondrioderma germinate also on gelatin ; but the swarmspores have no 

 flagella, and are converted into microcysts after creeping about for a 

 time. The author succeeded in preserving a plasmode of Fuligo septica 

 five weeks without fructifying. 



Like other fungi, the Myxomycetes require air for the formation of 

 sclerotes or sporanges ; this very rarely occurs with submerged plas- 

 modes. If a plant which is beginning to form plasmodes in the air is 

 suddenly immersed in water, peculiar phenomena of disorganisation are 

 manifested. 



Glycogen was fouud in all the species examined, but not in the 

 swarmspores or amoebae ; it makes its appearance only after the forma- 

 tion of plasmodes ; it is most abundant before the breaking-up of the 

 plasmode into spores, and especially in the dense peripheral layer. 



Feeding Plasmodes of Fuligo.§ — Professor J. W. Harshberger 

 placed under observation an actively streaming plasmode of Fuligo 

 septica found on Pleurotus sajndus. The application of pieces of several 

 fungi — Coprinus cornatus, C. atramentarius, Hypholoma perplexum, Phallus 

 impudicus — was followed by their rapid environment and digestion ; and 

 the same was the case, after a time, with raw beef-steak and white of 

 egg ; the yoke of egg and butter were left untouched. It was not till 

 the original food-substance had been destroyed as food that saprophytic 

 ■organisms, such as mould-fungi, had any chance of development. 



• Brit. Med. Journ., 1901, i. pp. 957-8. 

 t Proc. Indiana Acad. Sci., Is98, pp. 209-12. 



X Misc. Biol. de'd. au prof. A. Giard, Paris, 1899. See Bot. Centralbl., lxxxvi. 

 <1901) p. 8. § Bot. Gazette, xxxi. (1901) pp. 198-203 (1 fig.). 



