406 Meyen's Report for 1839 on Physiological Botany, 



production of Confervae on an anatomized specimen of ^ Tri- 

 ton punctatus^ while under water. Similar formations were 

 observed on a dead salamander, a dead fly, and on the sur- 

 face of several wounds which were made on living salaman- 

 ders ; sometimes the formation took place without there 

 being any injury, e. g. on the toes, by which the toes attacked 

 were destroyed. 



[The plant observed by M. Hanover is the Achlya prolifera, 

 Nees v. Esenbeck ; and if, as M. H. says, M. Carus's figures 

 do not agree with his plants, perhaps those will which I gave 

 to Gothe's ^ Mittheilunger aus der Pflangenwelt^ (S. Nova 

 Acta Acad. C. L. C. torn. xv. pt. ii. p. 374, etc. tab. i. xxix.), 

 and in other places. I have seen this fungus under similar 

 circumstances on flies, spiders, earthworms, Planariae, dead 

 frogs, and even on putrifying Viscum album ; and have shown, 

 in Wiegmann^s Archiv, etc., 1835, ii. p. 354, that the little 

 fungus which is formed about autumn on the body of the 

 common house-fly has spores which germinate, and in water 

 grow out into Achlya prolifera. The seed-formation and the 

 germination of the Achlya spores were observed and repre- 

 sented in the above plate, as also in my ' Physiology,^ iii. tab. 

 X. fig. 18 and 19,— Meyen.'] 



M. Hanover inoculated the above plant on the back of a 

 healthy animal, and saw that the formation of Confervae had 

 commenced at the end of sixteen hours, but fell off with the 

 epidermis. The experiments were frequently repeated, but 

 it was always found that the development of the plant was 

 not injurious to the life of the animal. Moreover, M. H. re- 

 marked that the inoculation succeeded better with unripe 

 than with ripe Confervae. 



As I have occupied myself very considerably with this 

 subject, I may be allowed to mention my observations with- 

 out prejudice. 



The inoculation effected by M. Hanover is nothing more 

 than a common propagation ; the ripe plants afforded seeds, 

 out of which other plants were produced, and the so-called 

 unripe Confervae increased their single threads, as is done by 

 the order Achlya among the water Fungi, and by Vaucheria 

 among the Confervae. The growth of the fungous threads 

 from the mucous surface of the Tritonice cannot be injurious ; 

 they grow like mould from dispersed spores. But just as the 

 lower moulds are produced not only from spores, but also in 

 a manner as yet unknown to us, so it is the case with Achlya 

 prolifera and the Isarice ; they are moulds, which are de- 

 veloped as a product of a sickly state o^' the animal ; the 

 disease itself is deep-seated, for the animals generally die of 



