ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICKOSCOPY, ETC. 107 



be inhaled by respiration, Giboux prepared two boxes, in eacb of -whicli 

 he placed two young rabbits, and passed daily through each of them 

 20,000-26,000 c.c. of air, which had been exhaled by phthisical 

 patients of the second and third degree. With one of the boxes the 

 air was first filtered through a wad of cotton-wool. After about three 

 and a half months, the rabbits in the unprotected box died, having 

 suffered loss of appetite, thirst, diarrhoea, &c., and the lungs, liver, 

 and spleen were found to be tuberculated. In the protected box, on 

 the contrary, the rabbits were still perfectly healthy, and on autopsy 

 not a trace of tuberculosis was to be found. 



Parasitic Myxomycetes.* — W. Zopf describes a new myxomyeete, 

 Haplococcus reticulatus, belonging to the Monadinete, and specially to 

 the Yampyrelleae, which settles in great quantities in the muscles of 

 swine. Its structure is extremely simple, exhibiting two stages of 

 development, sporangia and resting-spores. The sporangia are 

 globular, and their membranes are thin in places where the delicate 

 inner wall protrudes in the form of papillae. The protoplasmic con- 

 tents break up into portions which display amoeboid motions, and 

 finally escape as amoeba through the gelatinized papillte. The 

 resting-spores are globular or tetrahedral with rounded corners, re- 

 sembling the spores of some ferns. Their strongly thickened and 

 cuticularized membrane is marked with ridges which form a beautiful 

 network. The author has not determined whether the parasite 

 has an injurious effect on the host, or renders its flesh unfit for 

 food. 



Algsd. 



Marchesettia, a New Genus of Floridese. f — Under the name 

 Marchesettia spcmgioides, F. Hauck describes a new type from Singapore, 

 Madagascar, and New Caledonia, belonging to the Areschougiacete. 

 The thallus is spongy and cartilaginous. The reproductive organs are 

 placed on special fertile branches, which are sometimes scattered over 

 the thallus, but more often collected into tufts at the apices of the 

 branches, and are formed from the growth of the outer branches of 

 the filaments of the thallus. The fertile have the same structure as the 

 vegetative branches, but in their fertile portions the cells of the outer 

 layers are considerably smaller. The cystocarps are sessile on the 

 fertile branches, broadly ovate, with moderately thick cellular pericarp 

 open at the apex, which incloses a simple or lobed roundish nucleus, 

 composed of a large, branched, basal, placental cell, the peripheral 

 branches of which radiate into crowded tufts of branched segmented 

 carpogenous filaments, the upper cells of which become carpospores. 

 The tetrasporangia are formed in somewhat club-shaped fertile 

 branches, the upper portion of which is swollen into a nemathecium, 

 which developes, by the growth of the cortical cells, into short rows 

 vertical to the surface; between these are placed the longish, very 

 irregularly divided tetrasporangia. 



* SB. Bot. Ver. Prov. Brandenburg, 1882, pp. 55-6. 

 t Hedwigia, xxi. (1882) pp. 140-1. 



