ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY^ MICROSCOPY, ETC. 447 



corresponding sections based on the nature of the spores, and PatelUnese ; 

 (3) Leptostkomace^, with four, and (4) Excipulace^, also with four 

 corresponding sections. The Melanconieae are divided into six sections, 

 also founded on the characters of the spores. The Hyphomycetes are classed 

 under four families, viz. (1) MucEDiNEiE, with five sections, Amerosporse, 

 Didymosporse, Phragmosporae, Staurosporce, and Helicosporae ; (2) Dematie^, 

 TOth corresponding sections; (3) Stilbe^, with two parallel series, 

 Hyalostilbese and Phseostilhese ; and (4) Tubeeoulaeie^, with two series, 

 Tuberculariese mucedinese and dematiese, 



New Fungoid Disease of Barley.*— Herr J. Eriksson describes a 

 disease which is very destructive to barley in the neighbourhood of Stock- 

 holm, making its appearance as brown spots on the leaves, extending to the 

 whole surface,_ preventing the production of ears, and finally killing the 

 plant. He believes it to be produced by Helminthosporium gramineum. 



New Disease in Corn.t— M. G. Passerini states that June 1883, M. 

 Eignoni noticed, at Vigatto, that the corn stubble was covered with a 

 cryptogamic growth. The parasite showed itself at the first node on the 

 culm, and covered the sheath of the leaf and then the leaf itself with greyish 

 spots, interspersed with black spots arranged in a longitudinal row in the 

 parenchyma. A fresh attack of the same disease was noticed by the author 

 in June 1886, at Torchiara, near Parma. This was investigated, and it is 

 stated that the parasite which caused it is a new Sphseria. It has been 

 taken as the type for a new genus, and has been called GibelUna cerealis 

 Pass, 



Structure and Life-History of Phytophthora infestans. J — Prof. H. 

 Marshall Ward, having been instructed by the Science and Art Department 

 to prepare a series of drawings illustrating the structure and life-histories 

 of certain parasitic fungi, here gives those which deal with the potato 

 fungus ; the remarks with which they are accompanied form a connected 

 life-history. 



Protoph.yta. 



lower Forms of Animal and Vegetable Life.§— M. P. A. Dangeard 

 discusses the relationship towards one another of the Protozoa and the 

 Chytridinese, placing in the former class those organisms in which the 

 food-materials are digested in the interior, in the latter those in which 

 digestion takes place from the outside. Among the former he treats 

 especially of the VampyrellefB, of variable form, the protoplasm of which 

 never contains a nucleus, but a large number of reddish granulations ; from 

 the surface protrude a large number of filiform retractile pseudopodia. 

 The food-material is sometimes swallowed for digestion; sometimes the 

 cell-wall is pierced and the nutriment extracted. The Yampyrelleffl 

 frequently divide during their period of activity; conjugation is rare; a 

 variable number may unite into plasmodia. The sporangia are usually 

 formed at the close of the period of activity ; their cell-wall is composed of 

 cellulose, and they give birth to zoospores. A production of cysts or 

 resting forms also takes place when the conditions of life are unfavourable. 



A number of species of Vampyrella are described, and it is proposed to 

 sink in this genus Klein's Monadopsis. Nearly allied to the Yampyrellese 

 are the heliozoarian Ehizopods, and descriptions are given of various species 



* Bot. Sallsk. Stockholm, Feb. 17, 1886. See Bot. Centralbl., xxix. (1887) p. 91 



t Kev. Mycol., viii. (1886) pp. 177-8. 



X Quart. Jouin. Micr. Soi., xxvii. (1887) pp. 413-25 (2 pis.). 



§ Ann. Sci. Nat, (Bot.), iv. (1886) pp. 241-341 (4 pis.). 



