100 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [Apr., 



animals that some authors have given them the same 

 name. Their form and character are exquisitely adap- 

 ted, in both cases, to their use ; being long, slender and 

 flexible, they can swarm about, progressing rapidly with 

 a vibratory motion, and come in contact with every sur- 

 face exposed to the liquid in which they find themselves ; 

 and the tapering anterior end readily enters any chink 

 or crevice that may be present, and insinuates itself 

 deeply into small cavities or loose tissues beyond, thus 

 leading or opening the way for the larger mass of fertil- 

 izing protoplasmic material, that forms the olive- shaped 

 enlargement at the other end, to reach the germ-cell that 

 requires fertilization. 



The subsequent development of the fertilized germ- 

 cell into the asexual spore-case {sporamgiuin, or sporogo- 

 nium) as it rises on its stalk from the top of the folia- 

 ceous plant of which it often becomes the most con- 

 spicuous and admired portion, and of which it is popu- 

 larly called the "fruit", though it is a non-sexual 

 member producing spores that are analogous to buds, not 

 seeds, is one of the most interesting studies that can be 

 made by the thougtful microscopist who frequents the 

 fields at the proper season of the year. 



It is not often easy, unless for an experienced botanist, 

 to find and identify the spores which have been scat- 

 tered as a powdery dust, and lost to sight amidst the 

 debris upon the moist soil, in order to observe their 

 germination, and the growth from them of a filamen- 

 tous vegetation {pro-e7nbryo, or -protonema) which in 

 turn produces, by lateral budding, the familiar moss 

 plant, a sexual state {oophore) bearing archegonia and 

 antheridia like our specimen. It is, however, an easy 

 and comparatively unfamiliar experiment to sow the 

 spores on clean sawdust or cotton wool, or on blotting 

 paper, kept damp beneath a bell-glass, and to watch, at 

 home and at leisure, the various stages of this most 

 interesting history. 



