220 SOME NOVA SCOTIAN AQUATIC FUNGI. MOORE. 



walls generally a color which has been described as an Indian 

 red, while the pits appear as light areas. 



The members of the first two families grow in water on 

 decaying vegetable and animal remains, such as dead algse, 

 sticks, the bodies of insects, etc., and may readily be procured 

 for study by collecting some of the debris and slime from the 

 bottom of any more or less permanent pool and throwing on the 

 water the dead body of an insect such as the common house fly, 

 first sterilized by soaking for a short time in absolute alcohol. 

 In from 24 to 48 hours the body of the fly will generally be 

 found to be covered with a filamentous growth quite visible to 

 the naked eye. Several species will, as a rule, be found to have 

 developed, and so general is the distribution of these forms of 

 life, that, in my own experience, only about one attempted 

 culture in every twenty was a complete failure. 



While the Saprolegniace.ee are normally saprophytes, various 

 species, of the genera Saprolegnia and AcJdya may become 

 facultative parasites and have been the cause of serious epidemics 

 among fish, the salmon appearing to be particularly suscep- 

 tible to their attacks. The fungus may develop on various 

 parts of the body of the fish, infesting the eyes and gills and 

 eventually causing blindness and death. The mortality among 

 the fresh water fish in the aquaria of the U. S. Fish Commission 

 at the World's Fair, Chicago, in 1892, was so great as to call 

 for a special investigation when the trouble was found to be due 

 to a Saproleynia, probably S. mixta 2 . 



All of the forms which are herein described and figured 

 belong to one or other of the families, Saprolegniacece and 

 Leptomitacece. and were collected during 1907 and 1908 in the 

 vicinity of Pictou, N. S.; Lower Mt. Thorn, Pictou Co.; and 

 Sydney, N. S. The number is not large, but the aiea covered 

 was small and, in addition to those here described, a considerable 

 number of forms appeared in the cultures made which are not 

 referred to ; the observations of them not being sufficiently 



