104 GENERAL BIOLOGY 



wood on to the slides, and, being thus well spread out, and 

 freed from dirt, will show the streaming movements of 

 protoplasm beautifully. One may be fixed on the slide 

 with strong alcohol and stained with safranin to demon- 

 strate the many nuclei. If an inclined slide be placed 

 against the edge of a plasmodium and a gentle current of 

 water made to run down the slide, the plasmodium will 

 creep up the slide in opposition to the current. 



Plasmodia may be grown from spores at any season, by 

 sowing the spores upon a proper nutrient surface, and keep- 

 ing them moist and under a darkened bell jar. 



The things that may most profitably be studied are : 



1) In the living plasmodium, its movements, its struc- 

 ture, its engulfing of solid bits of food (such as mushroom 

 fragments), its protoplasmic currents and its reactions to 

 stimuli. 



2) In its fruiting phase, the form and structure and group- 

 ings of the sporangia, the spores and their structure, and 

 the capillitial threads or other sterile parts in the sporan- 

 gium. 



3) In the development of the spores, the first amoeboid 

 stage, the later free-swimming stage, and the fusion of cells 

 to form minute new plasmodia (all of which may be seen in 

 drop cultures, made as directed in the appendix. 



The record of this study may consist of sketches and 

 diagrams of the things observed. 



THE FLAGELLATES. 



Unlike the slime-molds, the flagellates are minute 

 organisms having considerable definiteness of body struc- 

 tures, yet they have not clearly and uniformly differen- 

 tiated plant and animal characteristics. Hence these also, 

 or at least a considerable part of them, are treated in books 

 on both botany and -zoology ; in the former being ranked 



