238 INTRODUCTION TO CRYPTOGAMIC BOTANY. 



It is not simply that this Fungus is developed on tissues 

 already approximating to decay, but that its spores are capa- 

 ble of communicating the disease by simply falling upon the 

 silkworm, or being artificially placed on its integuments, 

 even without absolute inoculation. Whether Sporendonema 

 Muscce be merely a state of this or not is uncertain, but 

 nothing is more common than to see the Fungus protruding 

 between the abdominal rings in autumn. The flies, which are 

 the subject of attack, soon become heavy in their motions, and 

 attach themselves to any substance which may come in their 

 way by means of their proboscis, and in that situation perish. 

 The Guepes vegetantes of Jamaica are another instance of 

 animals bearing about a Fungus of considerable size, preying 

 upon their tissues, and there is reason to believe that the 

 caterpillars which bear the large Sphcericti in New Zealand and 

 elsewhere, are infested by the mycelium of the Fungus 

 before their death. It is now, however, matter of notoriety, 

 that in the human frame many cutaneous disorders are due to 

 the presence of Fungi. Tinea lupinosa is capable of propa- 

 gation by inoculation with the spores, and there is good reason 

 to believe that even in animals Fungi exercise a very impor- 

 tant morbific influence. A hundred memoirs or more could 

 readily be quoted in substantiation of this fact* It is true, 

 that in many cases the Fungi may be of very common kinds, 

 or under disguised forms, but this is what might readily be 

 supposed, for it is very rarely the case that such peculiar 

 matrices as the human skin, or mucous membrane, should 

 nourish Fungi absolutely peculiar to themselves. It is, in such 

 cases, far more easy to believe that the common Penicillia or 

 Asj^ergilli, which are notoriously indifferent about their 

 matrix, provided the proper chemical conditions be satisfied, 

 are the real antagonists. The insect Sphcerlw are found in 



not uncommon to find them in abundance in garden soil, producing at 

 length a little Isarioid tuft on the surface, and the larvfe affected by 

 species of Cordyceps, as in the well-known New Zealand si^ecies, are 

 often similarly aifected. 



* See more especially Eobin, Hist. Nat. des V6g6taux Parasites, &c., 

 Paris, 1853. 



