THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 81 



that does not allow of evaporation, you may watch through the 

 microscope from day to day and trace their development. In 

 one species I have found the naked swarm-cells (amoebulse) 

 emerge within two hours, and soon afterwards appearing as 

 flagellulse, and later again as amoeboid forms. While in this 

 stage they are capable of ingesting and digesting bacteria and 

 other material ; they also reproduce themselves by division. I 

 have kept them alive in these cells for two months, without 

 forming a plasmodium, the abnormal position possibly preventing 

 such. Nearly all the individuals passed into a " resting stage." 



For the study of the plasmodial and fruiting stages I have 

 been successful with using one-inch diameter test tubes, placing 

 a little absorbent wool at the bottom, adding a weak watery 

 infusion of hay, with the addition of about half a drachm 

 of pure meat gravy, to a height of about three inches from the 

 bottom, placing a few dead twigs and stalks of hay upright in 

 the tube, with the ends projecting some distance above the water, 

 then boiling for about fifteen minutes, and when cold, adding 

 some spores, and plugging the neck with cotton wool. The 

 boiling is to kill some of the bacteria and spores of mould, the 

 growth of which is apt to be too prolific. The plasmodia will 

 eventually climb up the stalks and sides of the tubes and form 

 sporangia. 



To-night I exhibit, under the microscope, amoeboid and 

 flagellated forms, and four or five individuals coalesced ; also 

 two species in fruit, cultivated by the method given above. 



A TRIP TO THE VICTORIAN ALPS. 

 By Chas. Walter. Communicated by C. French, jun. 

 (Bead before the Field Naturalists'' Club of Victoria^ lOi/i July, 1899.^ 

 By the special request of your committee I exhibited at the 

 conversazione in May last a series of about one hundred 

 herbarium specimens of Alpine plants collected by me during a 

 short excursion to the Victorian Alps in January last. The 

 exhibit seems to have attracted some attention, and I have since 

 been asked to give some notes of my excursion, for the benefit 

 of any members who may desire to visit the district and see the 

 great beauty and profusion of our Alpine flora. 



One of the first pioneers, if not the first, to visit our Alpine 

 regions was our late lamented friend Baron Ferdinand von 

 Mueller, who in 1853 and 1854, at a time when there were no 

 roads, no tracks, no townships, no hostelries in these remote 

 parts, explored the greater portion of our Alps, even at the risk 

 of his own life, and named Mount Hotham, now locally known 

 as " Baldy," in honour of Sir Charles Hotham, tlien Governor 

 of the colony, and also described ujost of our Alpine flora. 



