1890.] NEW-YORK MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 69 



Hospital. The ears, nose, and side of the face were covered 

 with a white mold, which had eaten into the flesh. The Doctor 

 thought it resembled the Aphtha, or thrush fungus. He even in- 

 timated that the animal might have been eating crumbs dropped 

 by children having the thrush. 



The role of these microscopical fungi is universal, in the 

 earth, the waters, and the air. No class of animal or vegetable 

 form is exempt from these minute parasites, and descending to 

 their relatives, the microbes, we reach the propagators of the 

 pestilence in man and beast, as the thrush fungus, Oidiiim, 

 or Saccharomxces albicans., which attacks the mucous membrane 

 of the mouth and throat of children. But the fungus which 

 causes the skin disease known as favus, the Achorion Schoen- 

 leinii., is much like a Torula, and is often fatal to rodents, and the 

 distance is not far from this parasitic serial mold to the parasitic 

 aquatic mold, represented by the Saf>rolegmcr, which beget terrible 

 skin diseases on the cold-blooded animals, newts, frogs, and fishes. 



Last October a friend in Trenton, N. J., caught for my aqua- 

 rium a number of the two species of sunfish, Enneacanthus sim- 

 uhms, the spotted sunfish and Mesogonistius chcztodon, the black - 

 banded sunfish. To await my coming for them they were put 

 in a tub in the yard, supplied with the city water from the Dela- 

 ware When I called it turned out that many of them were at- 

 tacked by the fungus, which afterwards proved to be chiefly 

 Saprolegnia ferox. I picked out eighteen that seemed to be un- 

 affected. These were introduced into a large aquarium, con- 

 taining already some fifty fishes of ten species. Alas ! it was 

 soon evident that the pestilence had invaded the little commu- 

 nity. In three days I could see the mold whitening on some of 

 the Trenton fishes. Another aquarium was arranged at once as 

 a quarantine, into which every infected fish was put as fast as 

 detected. Besides the two sunfishes mentioned, I already had 

 another species in the tank, Lepomis gibbosus, the common pump- 

 kin-seed. Curiously the inmates of the hospital were all sun- 

 fishes excepting a pirate perch. My treatment was painfully 

 unsuccessful. lu about six weeks I had lost twenty-four sun- 

 fishes by the fungus. This included all my Trenton fishes, save 

 a solitary one — an adult.' I had even at intervals emptied, and 



1. Since the above was read to the Society I find that a pirate perch has succumbed 

 to the fungus. 



