382 The Fungus Disease of India. [part ii. 



nature of the substratum and not to that of any peculiar varieties of organisms 

 present or assumed to be present in it. In one experiment in which the colour was 

 peculiarly well marked, it was not confined to any special vegetable forms, or even 

 to vegetable organisms, but appeared equally in the ciliate infusoria and Rotifers ; whilst 

 in another cultivation, various species of fungi artificially introduced into the morbid 

 materials became equally highly coloured whilst growing in and on them. It can 

 hardly be supposed that the coloured varieties of Rotifers had any connection with 

 the morbid products of the disease, save occurring in the water along with them, and 

 possibly deriving their nourishment from them. 



As to the coloured fungi of the other cultivation, it is manifest that their peculiarities 

 were dependent on the conditions under which they were developed or to which they 

 were subjected, for the species affected were not only among the commonest forms 

 of moulds, but only acquired their peculiar characters as to colour when artificially 

 exposed to the influences of the substratum. It would certainly be unwarrantable 

 to assume that varieties arising in such a way under the influence of certain substrata 

 are necessarily endowed with the power of reproducing similar materials elsewhere. 



The fact that the colouring matter present in one of the cultivations was identical 

 in its reactions (with acids and alkalis) with the red colouring matter of the concretions, 

 also points to its dependence on the chemical composition of the morbid material, and 

 not to any inherent special property of the fungal elements accidentally or wilfully 

 developed in association with it. Moreover, as was observed in the case of the culti- 

 vation of rice-paste forming the second in the series of cultivations here described, 

 and as we have frequently observed in other instances, pink coloration of the elements 

 of various moulds is by no means an uncommon phenomenon in this country, and 

 it is one which is assuredly not confined to cultivations connected with the morbid 

 products of this or any other disease — ^indeed we have seen it to develop on a dish 

 of drying crystals of lactate of lime, far removed from the place where these culti- 

 vation-experiments were being conducted ; so that the mere occurrence of it in 

 connection with the affection cannot be regarded as affording any satisfactory evidence 

 in favour of the dependence of the disease on a peculiar species, or even on peculiar 

 varieties of fungi. 



It appears to us that the original observations on the occurrence of red coloured 

 fungi, in connection with the products of the disease, point very forcibly in the same 

 direction as the results of the present cultivations, and indicate that, whatever the 

 nature of the organisms observed may have been — whether they belonged to peculiar 

 genera, or species or not — they were quite unconnected with the fungoid elements 

 of these products. It is a remarkable fact that in some instances the coloured moulds 

 were observed, as in our cultivations, in connection with the products of the pale 

 variety of the disease, that is, in connection with materials in which the presence 

 of fimgoid elements has never been demonstrated. Moreover they showed no unequi- 

 vocal evidences of specific identity in the different cases ; at all events, in so far 



