Some Questions which they Suggest. 9 



condition are known as Microcysts. But from the wall of 

 thia cyst the contents afterwards escape, and renew their 

 movements. 



The swarm spores (whether after encystment or not) now 

 enter upon a new stage. They gather together and fuse 

 into masses of naked protoplasm, the swarm spores 

 losing their individuality in a common mass. This mass 

 is called a plasmodium. This plasmodium grows in bulk 

 by the digestion of food, such as bits of fungus or dead 

 wood, and attracts to, and unites with itself, other 

 smaller plasmodia of the same species. In the Badhamia 

 utricularis this plasmodium is yellow ; it is white in many 

 species ; green or orange, or red or grey in other kinds. 

 This plasmodium moves, sometimes through the substances 

 of dead wood, in other cases on the surface, expanding in 

 an irregular fan shape, and marked irregularly by streaks 

 or veins, as may be seen in Fig. 4. It appears to move in 

 search of its requisite food. The Badhamia is much 

 devoted to fungi, and will extend itself over the surface of 

 a fungus till it has devoured all its more delicate parts. 



In the substance of this plasmodium there arises a strong 

 alternate movement of the more fluid protoplasm, a rush 

 of circulation through the channels of the plasmodium. 

 The granules move for a short time in the one direction, 

 then pause, and then move in the opposite way. The 

 strongest currents are indicated in Fig. 4 by the letters st. 



The plasmodia of different species differ much as regards 

 size. In some genera they are very visible, and were 

 known to some of the older botanists as Mesenterias, and 



