Rie) THE NORTHERN MICROSCOPIST. 
and are attached to the head by very delicate apicules. This 
species was found on old paper and rags in Millfield Lane, High- 
ate. 
‘ A very common mould is shown at 7, which appears on bread, 
starch-paste, cooked potatoes, and almost every other substance 
used in the culinary art. The vegetative system consists of a 
colorless mycelium from which spring aerial hyphz bearing sporangia 
at their summits. These sporangia are at first globose, finally when 
ripe becoming slightly oval, when they collapse ; the empty spor- 
rangium or spore-case falling down as a bell-shaped cap over the 
top of the fertile thread and scattering the mature spores around 
it. This fungus is the Ascophora mucedo, one of the Mucorini ; but 
the members of this genus must not be confounded with the genus 
Mucor, in which the sporangium does not collapse, but simply 
bursts, and so scatters its spores. Although common, the A. 
mucedo is nevertheless very interesting and instructive, and the 
student will be repaid who studies its life history. 
We have two members of the Perisporiacei which are often 
found on common objects : first, the Chetomium chartarum, shown 
at g, commonly known as “ paper bristle-mould ;” and the second, 
Ascotricha chartarum, figured at 7 The former consists of a thin 
black sub-globose perithecium, containing sub-globose sporidia, 
and is found on damp straw, decaying paper, and such like sub- 
stances. All the species of this genus are found in easily accessible 
places: C. elatum and C. glabrum on rotting straw, and C. murorum 
on plaster walls. The perithecium is usually surrounded by a grove 
of erect hyphze, as shown in the illustration. 
In A. chartarum the perithecium is a thin, olive-brown body, 
seated on branched radiating threads ; the asci are compacted in 
this, and contain broadly elliptical chocolate-colored spores. 
( Zo be continued. ) 
A FEW NOTES ON SECTION GUReime: 
O not be satisfied with mediocrity. Sections of moderate size 
may be easily cut without tearing and consequent disfigurement, 
and should they be torn cast them aside as there are are already 
too many of such preparations in circulation. 
_ Now in order to produce good sections we must have suitable 
instruments to work with, notably, a well made microtome; and a 
knife, the edge of which rivals in sharpness that of the keenest 
razor. The selection of the microtome must necessarily depend 
on the quality of work expected from it; hard and soft bodies may 
require different instruments, still the microscopist who devotes his 
