and some other Grasses. 461 
The size of the reproductive bodies is excessively minute, being not more 
on the average than the 44th part of an inch long, and the 445 .th part of 
an inch in diameter; some few however being much smaller, and others lar- 
ger than these dimensions. 
Their number on one ergot, perhaps, is more astonishing than their mi- 
nuteness; for by immersing in water a full-sized specimen from the Elymus 
when copiously covered, and making use of means for detaching them, a film 
was obtained which thickly covered more than a square inch of surface ; con- 
sequently from a rough calculation there could not be many less than twenty 
millions of sporidia on this specimen, supposing the film was only one layer in 
thickness. 
When these minute bodies are moistened with water and magnified about 
500 to 600 times linear, their structure becomes just discernible, and there 
can be observed in their interior a rounded nucleus or granule, or sometimes 
two or three such, which are of a greenish colour*; very seldom it is that 
there are more than three; and occasionally sporidia will be found that do 
not contain any granules: all of which varieties are mentioned and accurately 
figured by Phoebus in his account of these bodies, and their dissimilarity as 
well as their containing small corpuscules caused him to doubt their being 
fungic sporidia. 
The size of these granules was generally about one eighth or one tenth that 
of the body containing them, and may be calculated to be about ,,4,-th 
part of an inch in diameter. 
Having kept some sporidia on a moistened glass, evident proofs were seen 
in a short time of incipient germination; and Philippar mentions, that when 
he moistened cloth and strewed sporidia upon it, they presented the appear- 
ance of having germinated: to examine this fact more perfectly, some of these 
bodies were placed on a slip of glass, moistened with distilled water, and co- 
vered with a thin plate of mica, and it was found immediately that a move- 
ment existed among them, such I considered as was discovered by Mr. Brown 
to exist amongst all fine particles, whether organic or inorganic, when placed 
so as to have free motion in water; the sporidia under observation never 
* The green colour is owing to the minute body decomposing the light. 
