1897] OBSERVATIONS ON THE MYVXOBACTERIACE®: 405 
matter of fact, the cysts or spore masses are not always pro- 
duced vertically free from the substratum; and were forms dis- 
covered, as they well may be, which reached maturity in water 
or embedded in the nutrient matrix, they would still be clearly 
distinguished as above indicated. 
Among the forms described below belonging to the genus 
Chondromyces the most striking is that which I have called C. 
apicudatus, an African species distinguished from its ally, C. cro- 
catus, by a curiously well defined and constant specific character, 
which, though quite as reliable as a well marked difference in 
Spore-form would be in the higher fungi, is here dependent on a 
slight variation in the movements of the individuals composing 
the ultimate rod masses during the maturation of the cysts, the 
invariable recurrence of which gives to the mature cysts a spe- 
cific form. This form results from the fact that the cyst, when 
it has received all the rods destined for it, becomes at first fusi- 
form, as in C. crocatus, the extremities, however; being more 
attenuated than in this species ; but while in C. crocatus the mass 
of rods composing it, together with the film of hardened gela- 
tinous material which has been secreted around them, gradually 
assumes the subconical shape characteristic of the species, the 
individuals in the cyst of C. apiculatus migrate from each extrem- 
ity towards the center, this movement taking place within, and 
Without involving the surrounding membrane which is thus left 
empty at each end, the empty portions corresponding to the 
shrivelled appendages which distinguish the mature cysts. 
Among the other species the most interesting are perhaps 
the Cystobacter erectus and C. fuscus of Schroeter. Of these the 
former (figs. z6-19), although undoubtedly a Chondromyces, 
Proves quite distinct from C. aurantiacus with which I was for- 
merly inclined to unite it; while the latter, since it is doubtless 
Congeneric with the species of my own genus Myxobacter, any 
be considered as the type of the genus Cystobacter, a name 
which, of course, antedates my own. tee Ae ee 
___ Chondromyces apiculatus, nov. sp. Plate XXX, figs. 1-15.— 
_ Cystophore stiff, rigid, simple, rarely sparingly branched, 
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