iSqo.] nkw-york microscopical society. 85 



irregular roundish masses of cohesive granuloid protoplasm. 

 Some vacuoles seem discernible, but beyond this my i'* water 

 immersion with B eye-piece failed to go, not even revealing the 

 usual propelling ciliae. Yet we must suppose the existence of 

 the latter, with also the central neucleus, imbued with that force 

 necessary to the coming phenomena of life. 



5. If we add that in common with the Saprolegniic. their 

 home is aquatic, their habitat as parasites is the fish, and their 

 mission to weave like Dejanira a toxic shroud of suffering and 

 death upon the living, the resemblance to Saprolegnia is in 

 some particulars quite striking. 



I feel that without the special knowledge of the fungologist, 

 and the algologist, it becomes one to be modest in the matter of 

 speculation. Yet it may not be presumptuous in this con- 

 nection to say that our new fungus has impressed me with the con- 

 viction that the believers in a border land for these aquatic molds 

 between the fungi and the algre may not be visionary after all. 



Regarding our fungus as a novelty, it should be christened in 

 due form, for before it can go into scientific registration, it 

 must receive a canonical description. 



Thallus, an infundibuloid capsule, or sporangial cell, the 

 basal end, an imperforate point, often a little curved, constricted 

 or inflected at the rim, making the aperture about f that of the 

 diameter across the face. Fitting to this a membraneous cap or 

 operculum, very variable in length, and form of the posterior 

 part. Inside the capsule a hollow-core of somewhat wavy or 

 irregular parallel planes, their inner edges making a well in the 

 middle of the capsule. The sporidia from these hymeneal 

 lamellas issuing into the well, there swelling, the mass rising 

 lifts off the operculate lid, flows over the rim, and thus swarms 

 from the mother-cell. Neither hypha nor mycelium observed. 

 History of the spore development unknown. Habitat- Parasitic 

 on the marine fish. Hippocampus heptagonus Rafin. 



As esteeming the scientific zeal of a member of our society, 

 the species is named, Devxa infundibilis Lockwood. 



Note.— Prof . Bashford Dean suggests the question : " How much may any injury 

 to a flsh, such ;xs removes the external mucus, have to do with its susceptibility 

 to the fungus ? '" As perhaps bearing on this let me mention that the egg of a 

 Nereid must have been in the water when I improvised my little aquarium for 

 the Hippies. It attained a growth of three inches in length, and was not hurt by 

 the fungus. The Nereids are smooth, and bm-row in the sand, and their many 

 joints or sections afford easy places for the fungus to attach themselves. 



