TERMITE fungi: A RESUJVIG. 315 



round plates as much as 1 mm. in diameter, and consisfcing of 

 dense branched hyphse. These apparently correspond to the 

 structures mentioned and described by Holtermann, but differ 

 from these, so far as I have been able to observe, in not having 

 the tips of the hyphse swollen. Here and there on the inner 

 walls, usually not in any great abundance, but more sporadic, 

 at least in the gardens I have examined, there are small round 

 bodies , which may be as much as 2 • 5 mm. in diameter. They 

 are of a brilliant white colour, and are unlike those mentioned 

 by Holtermann in always lacking a peduncle. These spherules 

 are of rather solid consistency and have an external tougher 

 envelope, the whole forming a compact mass of very much 

 branched and contorted hyphse. The formation of the oidia, 

 or process, whereby, according to Holtermann, the hyphse in 

 the interior of the spherules breaks up almost completely into 

 very short oval cells, is by no means so complete in our species. 

 To be sure, the hyphse are constricted in the interior, so that 

 they appear as rows of short oval cells, completely filled with 

 protoplasm ; but these cells, even in the largest spherules which 

 have reached their full development, remain attached to one 

 another, so that when a thin section is pressed under the 

 covQr glass only a few of the cells escape. In the spherules 

 described by Holtermann, on the contrary, slight pressure on 

 the cover glass sets free thousands of oidia." 



Of the fungus on the combs of Termes vulgaris, Tragardh 

 states : " The spherules are much smaller than in nataleyisis, 

 are like these non-pedunculate, and occur in great numbers on 

 the walls and especiall}^ on the roofs of the cavities and 



galleries in the peripheral portions of the gardens The 



spherules are unlike those of T. natalensis in structure, since, 

 as shown in figs. 2 and 3, PI. III., the cells in the outer laj'er 

 of the spherules are larger than those in the interior. Both 

 the inner rows of cells, which branch dichotomously, and the 

 outer ones are in part empty, in part filled with finely granular 

 protoplasm." 



The figures, which are reproduced by Wheeler, show that 

 the structure of the " spherule " of T. vulgaris is identical 

 Math that of the white spheres of the Ceylon nests examined 

 by Holtermann. With regard to the fungi found on the combs 



