Miscellaneous. 809 



And I may also notice in this place a hybrid of an entirely dif- 

 ferent kind, which was deposited during the eariier part of this year 

 in the Society's Menagerie, and has become the property of the Earl 

 of Derby. This animal was imported from India some four years 

 ago, and appears to be the produce of a Zebu mother and a Yak sire, 

 although I have been altogether unable to trace its actual history. — 

 Proc. ofZool. Soc.y Dec. 11, 1849. 



SPHiERONEMA DEFORMANS. 



Some time since our attention was called to a curious case of hyper- 

 trophy in a crop of peas observed by Dr. Dickie, in the county of 

 Aberdeen, and a somewhat similar case occurred last year in the great 

 conservatory at Kew, on the leaves of more than one species of Ple- 

 roma. In the former case bodies, probably due to incipient fermen- 

 tation, resembling the yeast fungus, were present ; in the latter no 

 such bodies were observed. But in an eruptive disease on the leaves 

 of Eranthemum pulchelluniy lately transmitted by one of our corre- 

 spondents, where the external appearance is almost identical, the pre- 

 sence of a well-formed fungus is beyond all doubt. The under side 

 of the leaves is spotted with little pale dirty white, or fawn-coloured 

 pustules, which exhibit at first a cellular structure, and appear to be 

 in that state a mere exuberant growth of the cellular tissue of the 

 leaf, containing no trace of filaments, or anything like fructification. 

 It is not, however, clear, when the further history of these pustules 

 is taken into consideration, that they are really an altered state of the 

 cells, and not a cellular tissue proper to the parasite ; because not 

 only is the stroma of many Sphcerice distinctly and closely cellular, 

 but even where no visible stroma exists, as for instance, in Sphceria 

 herbaruniy the early stage of growth before any fructification is formed, 

 exhibits simply a mass of cells, and as it approaches maturity the 

 central cells are absorbed, while asci are developed from those near 

 the walls. In a very curious genus, lately communicated by Dr. 

 Montagne, after the absorption of the central cells, the basal cells are 

 transformed into spores, as in some Algse. 



In the production before us, the whole pustule is at first shapeless, 

 and confused with the tissue of the matrix. After a time however 

 the surface is rough, with a greater or less number of points, reduced 

 rarely to one or two, which are the ostioles of so many perithecia. 

 There are no asci, but myriads of very minute subelhptic spores are 

 produced on short delicate sporophores, without any trace of asci. 

 The fungus is therefore a Sphceronema, taking the genus in a certain 

 degree of latitude ; and it is very possible that at a certain stage of 

 growth the spores ooze out, forming a globule or cirrhus at the tip of 

 the ostiole, a circumstance dependent entirely on the degree to which 

 the perithecia are susceptible of coUapsion. Not having seen speci- 

 mens in their place of growth, we cannot state positively that the case 

 is so. For the same reason it is impossible to affirm what is the pre- 

 disposing cause of the production of the parasite — which not only 



