Mycctozoa. Comuvia Serpula. By Jos. M. Coon. 143 



cases, others were swollen but the spore-cases had not ruptured,, 

 and others appeared just as when dry. 



In the process of hatching, the first visible change in the spores 

 is an apparently swollen condition, with a somewhat translucent 

 aspect ; the foldings or markings of the walls become finer, as 

 though they had opened out (fig. 2) ; subsequently the walls 

 rupture, and very gradually the swarm-cell emerges as a pellucid 

 globule with a visible nucleus (figs. 3 and 4). Slowly the plasma 

 of the swarm-cell assumes a more or less granular appearance, and 

 after a few hours a beak-like pi^ojection (fig. 5) extends, which 

 lengthens to a flagellum (fig. 6), forming a propelling organ. By 

 this time one or more vacuoles are visible, and also distributed! 

 cloudy masses of protoplasm. 



Plasmodium. — The few plasmodia that I have found are very 

 small when compared with those of many genera ; from the small 

 and isolated plasmodicarps, they probably do not attain large- 

 dimensions. 



The first plasmodium found was washed off on to a cover- 

 glass and placed in a damp cell ; after a few hours it spread' 

 partially (fig. 7), and the streaming movement of the granular pro- 

 toplasm became visible, the movement being in one direction for 

 120 seconds, then stopping for 100 seconds, reversing for 120 

 seconds — these times are not absolute, but averages ; the change 

 of position of an advancing edge could not be observed, but by 

 drawing an edge after intervals of time distinct advances were- 

 shown. In one case an edge advanced rather more than half a 

 millimetre in 26 minutes. Tliis plasmodium formed a sclerotium 

 (fig. 8) in 12 hours after being placed in the damp cell ; seen by 

 transmitted light, it shows a considerable amount of included 

 foreign matter, chiefly small pieces of tan ingested as food ; these, 

 with the coloured fluids mixed with its plasma, are cast out or left 

 behind when a plasmodium migrates to a suitable place to pass 

 through the final phase of its life as an individual. In forming the 

 sclerotium considerable condensation of bulk took place. 



Another plasmodium, when washed on to glass, extended 

 itself nicely, and photographs are appended ; in searching for 

 food, it extends itself in long, thin branching lines (fig. 10), which 

 I describe as the " foraging formation," but when feeding it forms 

 a wide advancing waved edge, followed by its thinly extended and 

 vacuolated substance (fig. 9), in which the streaming movement of 

 the granules are easily and distinctly seen. The true colour of the 

 Plasmodium is translucent white, but in its feeding condition it 

 looks cream colour, from the coloured nature of its food, and the 

 fluids stained thereby. 



Seen on the tan, the plasmodium is inconspicuous ; part may 

 be spread abroad as a finely-laced fan, the bulk of its material 

 lying in a crevice, or imbedded in the tissues of the tan or fine 



