The Fungus Foot of India. 



255 



point. There is not the slightest ground for supposing that 

 the disease depends on inoculation with the spores of any of the 

 truly parasitic fungi belonging to the tribe of rusts and mildews, 

 and, therefore, more or less closely allied to ^Ecidium ; but great 

 reason, on the contrary, as appears from what has been stated 

 above, and in the Appendix B to the second memoir, for look- 

 ing to the origin amongst the mucors, even were there not some- 

 thing like direct proof. 



It is well known that mucedinous fungi make their appear- 

 ance within cavities of vegetables which have no apparent con- 

 nection with the outward air. Nothing, for example, is more 

 common than to find a pink mould (Trichothecium roseum) in the 

 middle of a nut ; and an allied vegetable production (Dactylium, 



oogenum) has been found in an unbroken egg. Even the cells 

 of plants themselves produce fungi which fructify within them. 

 How the .spores are carried there is at present a mystery, which 

 may some day be cleared up, like the origin of many intestinal 

 worms, which can no longer be brought forward as an argu- 

 ment for equivocal generation. There is, however, reason to 

 believe that amoeboid growths are not confined to such dust- 

 like fungi as the ^Ethalium which is such a pest in pine-stoves ; 

 and zoospores have already been ascertained to occur in certain 

 moulds, as, for example, in the Peronospora which causes the 

 potato murrain. The Fungus foot is confined to the natives 

 who go about with naked feet, and the spores might easily be 



