146 PARASITICAL GROWTHS ON LIVING ANIMALS. 



fatty tissue of the insect into radicles (thallus) of the cryptogamic vege- 

 tation, to which he gave the name of Botrytis Bassiana.* (PI. 1. fig. 4.) 



3. The next observation is that of M. Des Longchamps,t in a paper 

 " On the habits of the Eider duck (Anas mollissimaj" , in which he de- 

 scribes the occurrence of layers of mouldiness developed during life, on 

 the internal surface of the aerial cavities of one of these birds, which he 

 examined on the 2nd July, 1840, while yet warm. This vegetation 

 occurred in the form of flakes or layers, deposited in great numbers on 

 the walls of these cavities. Most of these plates, or layers, were cir- 

 cular, and they varied in size from two or three millimetres to several 

 centimetres. The small bronchial tubes were covered with them in 

 great abundance. Two kinds of these plates or flakes were observed. 

 Beneath the larger ones the membrane upon which they were situated 

 was uniformly reddened and thickened ; beneath the smaller ones, to- 

 wards the centre, a vascular net work was seen, surrounded by a zone, 

 in which the vascularity was less distinct, and beyond this zone the 

 vascularity was again increased, but in less degree than in the centre. 

 The colour of the smaller flakes was a dirty white ; the larger ones 

 were also white, but greenish in the centre. The border of the larger 

 flakes was irregular, which irregularity evidently resulted from their 

 being formed by the confluence of several adjoining smaller flakes. 

 Examined under the microscope, this mouldiness appeared to be com- 

 posed of transparent non- articulated filaments (Plate l,fig. 3), slightly, 

 if at all branched, and intermixed like the fibres of felt. These fila- 

 ments, imbedded in a layer of albumen, were in parts scarcely the y^-Q-th 

 of a millimetre in diameter. M. D. further observed numerous ovoid 

 or globular vesicles in the felt-like mass, of the same diameter as the 

 filaments, which vesicles he looked upon as sporules. These growths 

 appeared to have no immediate connexion with the living tissue. 



4. A mouldiness of a different kind was also observed by MM. 

 Rousseau and SerrurierJ, which they describe as being found not unfre- 

 quently in pigeons and fowls, particularly in cold and humid situations, 

 or in rainy seasons. These observers found it in the body of a male 



* For further observations on this disease, vide a paper by M. Johanny, Annales 

 des Sciences Naturelles, Vol. XI, Page 65, 80 ; and one by M. Crivelli, in Schlec- 

 tendahl's Linnaea, 118, 123; and byM. Bonafous, L'Institut, No. CCLXXIX, Page 

 154 ; and Henle's Pathologisch. Untersuchung. 



f Annales des Sciences Naturelles, June 1841, Page 371. 

 t Comptes Rendus, 1841. 



