A Windfall for the Microscope. 13 



A WINDFALL FOR THE MICROSCOPE. 



BY THE HON. MRS. WARD. 

 {With a Coloured Plate.) 



Any one who (whether truly or otherwise) has acquired the name 

 of a naturalist is liable to be asked concerning a jelly-like sub- 

 stance occasionally appearing in sufficient quantity to attract 

 observation. The question sometimes will be, " What is that 

 jelly which falls from the sky V as though that method of depo- 

 sition could alone account for its sudden appearance. 



In answer, we have generally to say on being shown a speci- 

 men, that the jelly alluded to has certainly not fallen from the 

 sky, and can pronounce it to be the plant described by Linnasus 

 as Tremella nostoc, and variously named by other authorities 

 Nostoc, Tremella, " witch-butter," and " shot stars." This 

 Nostoc is of a brownish-green colour, and, with a high magni- 

 fying power, proves to be composed of a multitude of very 

 beautiful beaded filaments, lying in gelatinous fronds. These 

 filaments, it would seem, rapidly subdivide, and in this way in- 

 crease, while new fronds form around them when favoured by 

 damp. " They frequently," says Dr. Carpenter,* "attain a 

 very considerable size, and as they occasionally present them- 

 selves quite suddenly (especially in the latter part of the 

 autumn on damp garden walks), they have received the name 

 of ' fallen stars/ They are not always so suddenly produced, 

 however, as they appear to be ; for they shrink up into mere 

 films in dry weather, and expand again with the first shower." 



The inquirers will, perhaps, be content with this explana- 

 tion ; but possibly the objection may be raised that Nostoc is 

 not the only kind of jelly, and they have seen some of quite 

 different appearance. Possibly, then, a story which I have to 

 tell of some jelly found under circumstances of undoubted 

 isolation, and in a place where nothing of the sort had existed 

 a few hours before, may throw light on the matter. It 

 happened a few years ago, and I took such notes as I judged of 

 importance at the time, making careful drawings of the 

 mysterious substance, and the unexpected changes which it 

 underwent. 



To proceed, then : On the 20th of August I received from a 

 friend fourteen miles off a little bottle containing a pale, jelly- 

 like substance (Fig. 1), and a paper containing about thirty 

 black grains, at first sight much resembling dry tea (Fig. 2). 

 The information my friend sent with them was that they 

 had been found on the deck of his yacht, the vessel being 



* The Microscope and its Revelations, p. 338. 



