ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 655 



sional swellings. The fructification varies greatly in form and in 

 size from that of a pea to a pigeon's egg. The peridium of the 

 mature fructification is from 1 • 5 to 2 • 5 mm. thick, smooth, and 

 composed of densely packed yellowish hyphre. The white shining 

 chambered gleba resembles in structure that of Melanogaster and 

 Hysterangium. The trama is readily distinguished from the 

 hymenial hypha3, and is composed of a mass of extremely thin shining 

 filaments, of which the hymenial filaments are elongated unseptated 

 branches. The chambers of the gleba are usually polygonal, and are 

 filled, as in Melanogaster, with jelly resulting from the swelling of 

 those basidia which have already produced spores. The ripe spores 

 are yellow, and about 0*02 mm. in diam. They are produced in the 

 ordinary way in fours on the basidia, but without sterigmata. The 

 membrane eventually separates into two layers, an exospore and an 

 endospore ; the exospore finally deliquesces into jelly ; so that the 

 ripe spore is at length surrounded with a smooth gelatinous trans- 

 parent envelope, investing it like a sac. The spores contain a dense 

 fine-grained protoplasm, with small drops of oil. 



Parasites of the Human Ear.* — Loewenberg states that otomy- 

 kosis frequently results from the introduction into the ear of the 

 mycelium of fungi through the medium of ordinary oily substances 

 such as olive-oil, oil of almonds, balsam, pomade, &c. ; and he recom- 

 mends as a substitute for these glycerine, which is not liable to the 

 same objection. Disease is also caused by the occurrence of mycelial 

 filaments in liquid medicinal applications, such as tannin, alum, zinc- 

 vitriol, &c. The most extreme care must consequently be taken as to 

 the purity of fluids for dropping into the ear, especially where the 

 drum is perforated. 



He also adduces a case of ophthalmomykosis apparently caused 

 by the presence of mycelial filaments in solutions of atropine and 

 chlorine. The use of alcoholic in preference to aqueous solutions is 

 recommended wherever practicable ; where the latter are indispensable, 

 they should be boiled, or kept in so concentrated a state that the 

 mycelia or spores of fungi cannot retain in them their power of 

 growth, and diluted with freshly boiled water immediately before 

 using. 



Chromogenous Schizomycete on Cooked Meat.f — In some experi- 

 ments carried out by J. B. Schnetzler, pieces of fresh boiled beef, ten- 

 dons, bones, and fat, exposed to the air but protected from light, became 

 completely covered with a coating of a beautiful fuchsin-red colour. 

 With an immersion lens magnifying 750 diam., this was seen to be 

 composed of a gelatinous mass in which were imbedded multitudes of 

 globular Micrococcus-cells about 1 /x in diam. These presented all 

 stages of transition between Pahnella mirifica Eabh., and P. prodigiosa 

 Mont. (Micrococcus prodigiosus Cohn, Monas prodigiosa Ehrenb., Zoo- 



* Loewenberg, ' Des champignons parasites de l'oreille humaine.' Paris, 1880. 

 See Bot. Centralbl., x. (1882) p. 405. 



t Bull. Soc. Vaud. Sci. Nat., xviii. (1882) pp. 117-9. 



2 y 2 



