234 FIRST FORMS OF VEGETATION. 
red colour, resembling arterial blood. ‘The 
servants,’ he observes, ‘much astonished at what 
they saw, brought us half a fowl roasted the 
previous evening, which was literally covered with 
a gelatinous layer of a very intense carmine-red, 
and only of a bright rose colour where the layer 
was thinner. A cut melon also presented some 
traces of it. Some cooked cauliflower which had 
been thrown away, and which I did not see, also, 
according to the people of the house, presented 
the same appearance. Lastly, three days after- 
wards, the leg of a fowl was also attacked by the 
same production.’ From a microscopic examina- 
tion, M. Montagne concluded it to be the same 
thing as described by Ehrenberg. The particles 
of which it is composed have an active molecular 
motion, and hence Ehrenberg’s mistake in suppos- 
ing it to be an animalcule. Its resemblance to 
the gelatinous specks which occur on mouldy 
paste, or raw meat in an incipient state of de- 
composition, would seem to indicate that it is a 
fungus allied to the moulds, and not an alga. Its 
vitality is not impaired by desiccation, even at a 
high temperature. A portion of paste containing 
this Palmella was dried in an oven for forty-eight 
hours, until nearly baked into biscuit, yet frag- 
ments of it readily grew when scattered on fresh- 
made dough. 
