HISTORY OF PILOBOLUS 3 



of an optical sense-organ or simple eye (ocellus) ; (2) that this 

 simple eye, owing to the manner in which it responds to heUo- 

 tropic stimuli, causes the Pilobolus gun to be so laid that the 

 sporangium with its load of spores is shot away as far as possible 

 into an open space ; (3) that this mode of discharge causes the 

 sporangium to lodge on herbage where it may be swallowed with 

 the herbage by some grazing herbivorous animal ; and (4) that the 

 sporangium fastens itself to a grass-stem or grass-leaf, etc., in such 

 a way that it cannot be washed away from its place of attachment 

 even during a heavy shower of rain. 



The Discovery, Structure, Taxonomy, and Life-history of 

 Pilobolus. — The earliest record of Pilobolus appears to have been 

 made in 1688 by John Ray ^ in his Historia Plantarum from a 

 description sent to him from Virginia by John Banister. The 

 fungus was illustrated (Fig. 97, p. l^d'l) by Plukenet ^ in 1691, was 

 "observed on horse dung about London" by Petiver ^ in 1696, 

 and was observed again by Henry Baker * in 1 744 on mud brought 

 from the Thames.^ 



In 1778, and more fully in 1782, Otto F. Miiller,^ a Danish 

 zoologist who studied the lower animals, described a Pilobolus as 

 a new kind of zoophyte. He regarded the ghstening subsporangial 

 swelling as a crystalline body, and a little worm which, doubtless, 

 was crawling over its outside he thought was inside, swimming 



1 John Ray, Historia Plantarum, Vol. II, 1688, p. 1928. 



^ L. Plukenet, Alinagentum butanicum, London, 1696, p. 164 ; also Phytographia, 

 London, 1691, Plate CXVI, Fig. 7. There can be but little doubt that this Figure 

 is a reproduction of Banister's original drawing made in Virginia. 



^ In John Ray's Synopsis methodiai stirpium hritannicarum, London, ed. II, 1696, 

 p. 322. 



4 Henry Raker, Xatural History of the Polype Insect, 1744, Chap. XI, Plate XXII, 

 Figs. 9, 10. 



^ Coemans, in liis Monograph ie du genre Pilobolus (p. 1), remarks that Baker's 

 description and illustrations leave no doubt that his Pilobolus was P. oedipus, this 

 conclusion being strengthened by the fact that the fungus was found on mud, 

 a substratum \ipon which P. oedipus has often been observed. Nising (Coemans' 

 Monographic, p. 6U) observed it on mud of the river Oder, and I have observed it on 

 mud obtained from the Rod River at Wimiipeg. 



*• Otto F. Miiller, " Von dor Entdeckung eines neuen Geschlechts von Thier- 

 pflanze," Berlinische Sanniihaigen zur Beforderung der Arzneiu'issenscluift, Stiiek I, 

 1778, pp. 41-52 ; also " Von einem Kristallschwammchen," Kleine Schriflen a.d, 

 Naturhistorie, herausg. v. J. A. E. Goeze, Bd. I, 1782, pp. 122-132. 



