INVERTEBRATA, CRTPTOGAMlAj MICROSCOPY, ETC. 675 



noticed in the reflections from its surface. Its margin presented no 

 peculiar features. 



Its sluggishness was supposed to be due to its being gorged with 

 food ; and, to test this inference, a portion of the plasmodium was 

 placed in a drop of water on an ordinary glass slide. It soon became 

 ditfused, filling the drop with a granular jelly, perceptibly brown in 

 colour though paler than the mass from which it had been taken. 

 Still, no movements could be seen, and signs of its irritability were 

 altogether obscure. 



To eliminate as far as possible the results of satiety, the water in 

 the drop was evai)orated till the drop became a gummy or viscid 

 patch. A second drop of piu'o water was then placed on the slide, the 

 edge of the drop being about 3 mm. from the margin of the viscid 

 patch. The water in the drop w'as then led to the edge of the patch, 

 forming a narrow neck of water between the two. In about fuiir 

 hours the protoplasm of the patch had begun to pass through the 

 neck, leaving all the granules behind, and was gathering in a mass on 

 one side of the drop. The protoplasm and the water were alike 

 perfectly pure and colomdess. The edge of the protoplasm could 

 only be discerned by a difference between the refractive power of the 

 water and that of the protoplasm, now highly saturated with water. 

 Why the protoplasm kept itself together, and why it seemed to choose 

 one side of the drop, must be left unexplained ; but when the proto- 

 plasm had filled rather more than half the drop, its margin on the 

 growing edge was as sharply definite as the outline of the queen's 

 head on a new sixpence. Well-known amoeboid projections were 

 there, and others unfamiliar. The protoplasm was now evidently in 

 a starved condition, and was putting out feelers for food. The 

 feelers had slow motion, but the author was unable to observe the 

 circulation which must have been going on in the narrow neck. 

 Traces of extremely delicate interrupted lines could be seen on the 

 surfiice of the protoplasm, apparently diverging from the narrow neck. 



Before another opportunity offered for rei)eating the experiment, 

 some change took place in the plasmodium, and further attempts failed. 



Lichenes. 



Epiphora.* — This genus of lichens was established by Nylandert 

 out of Parmdia cncausta, and, as Minks believes, on insufficient 

 grounds. He considers Nylander's Epii)}iorn encansla to bo a true 

 lichen, which, however, in consequence of unfavourable vital con- 

 ditions forms neither gonidia nor gonangia, and not even the true 

 hyphal tissue and apothecia ; so that it cannot even be separuto<l as a 

 distinct species, much less genus. 



Nylander's genus Magriiop»if< has also, according to the same 

 authority, been fouJidcd on insufficient data. 



Lichens of Mont-Dore and Haute-Vienne.J — An important 

 analytical catalogue of tbc Lichens of tlicso two departments by Lnmy 



* ' Flora,' Ixiii. (ISSO) p. 105. ' t Ibid., lix. (187(5) p. 238. 



X ' Bull. S..C. B(jt France,' vol. xxv. Is78 (1880) p. 322. Sw ' Revue Mvcol.," 

 ii. (1880) p. lOG. 



2 Y 2 



