8 Moss Parasites. 



injured, but with twelve rays. In all these descriptions there 

 is nothing to lead us to suppose that this example was other 

 than the usually described Banks's oarfish, except that Mr. 

 Jones says that what remained of the right ventral fin was 

 " composed of two consistent bony rays/' which would be 

 decisive of an hitherto unknown species, and even of an aber- 

 rant genus. A sketch referred to gives only a single ray to 

 this fin, but in the American drawing there is the appearance 

 of two.- It is probable, however, that neither of these un- 

 scientific persons were aware of the interest attached to the 

 question whether these rays were one or two, and until this is 

 settled the exact nature of this fish must remain uncertain. 



MOSS PARASITES, 



BY THE REV. MILES JOSEPH BERKELEY, M.A., F.L.S. 



Almost every one is acquainted with the rhymes which speak 

 of the parasite upon parasite with which some members of the 

 insect world are infested, and a similar legend would equally 

 hold good with respect to other branches of the animal kingdom, 

 Nor are vegetables less subject to become the prey of other 

 vegetables. The mistletoe and broomrape, after they have done 

 their worst by their victims, are in their turn infested with 

 fungi, and the fungi themselves are obliged to submit to the 

 attacks of other more minute species, though not exactly ad 

 infinitum. Even lichens in their more arid form, subject as they 

 are at times to months of drought and the direct rays of a 

 burning sun, are not without their peculiar parasites, constituted 

 to endure the same abrupt changes from continued damp to 

 almost perfect dryness as themselves. Nor are the vascular 

 cryptogams, such as ferns, mosses, and liverworts without their 

 own especial enemies, though these are fewer in number per- 

 haps than in other organized beings. Mosses, for example, 

 besides affording a nidus for the development of such fungi as 

 the pretty scarlet Peziza axillaris, which perhaps is only a false 

 parasite, have one or two species which are developed in their 

 substance, as Septoria thecicola, Berk, and Broome, and Sphaeria 

 emperigonia, Auerswald. The former of these was found on 

 the ripe capsules of Polytrichum piliferum at Aberdeen, by Dr. 

 Dickie, and the latter in Germany by Herr Auerswald, on the 

 rose-like male inflorescence of Polytrichum commune, specimens 

 of which are published by Rabenhorst in his German Fungi. 

 Different as they are in structure, as will appear from the 

 accompanying figures, there is good reason to believe that they 



