[185] 



®n tbe SaprolcQuica^. 



By George Norman, M.R.C.S.E., etc. 

 Plates 37, 38. 



THE Saprolegnie/e are colourless parasites usually found 

 attached to animal or vegetable organisms in water ; they 

 are now regarded as fungi, closely allied to the Mucors or 

 Moulds. Two of the principal divisions of the group, Achlya and 

 Sapi'olegnia, have certainly been known for many years^ although 

 nearly always described by the early writers as Confervse or 

 Algae. 



In the year 182 1, we find a description by Gruithuisen of a 

 plant found on a dead water-snail, which he called Conferva ferax^ 

 and which, from the description given, was evidently a Saprolegnia. 

 In 1823, Saprolegnia is certainly described by Carus, who speaks 

 of it as a mouldy growth, and refers it to the Hydroiiemata^ a pro- 

 posed class of plants intermediate between Algae and Fungi. In 

 1 83 1 Nees refers to it, and in 1839 we have a paper by Hannover 

 entitled " On a Contagious Conferva growing upon the Water- 

 Salamander." Meyer, commenting upon this paper, in the same 

 year, remarks that the plant is Achlya prolifera^ and justly regards 

 the contagious character as an ordinary propagation of the plant 

 by spores. In 1841, we have a description by Dr. Stilling, of 

 Cassel, of a Contagious Confervoid growth on living frogs ; and in 

 the next year a paper entitled " Further Illustrations of the Con- 

 tagious Confervoid Growth on Frogs and Water-Salamanders," by 

 Hannover. The latter was in opposition to the essay of Stilling, 

 who was inclined to place this parasite in the Animal Kingdom. 

 In both cases the descriptions and drawings leave no doubt that 

 the plant described was Saprolegnia. In 1844, linger gave an 

 explicit account of the parasite, which had proved very destructive 

 to the Carp in the tanks of the Botanical Gardens at Gratz ; he 

 also met with it on sickly Goldfish. In Vol IX. of " The Annals 

 of Natural History," is an article by J. Goodsir, entitled " On the 

 Conferva which vegetates on the skin of a Goldfish," giving a good 

 description of Saprolegnia. 



