226 The Museum Gazette 



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attacks of the bacterial organisms causing decay. It may be, 

 and probably is, the fact that this sort of protection is very 

 incomplete and only occasional, that the more ordinary 

 occurrence is for the infected " set " to rot and disappear. 

 That, however, it does in some instances survive in a very 

 remarkable manner is obvious. 



In all the cases to which the above observations apply, the 

 foliage showed evidences of disease, in some more, in some 

 less, but in all very definitely, and in most considerable. 



During the last fortnight I have found the disease begin- 

 ning on a considerable number of new tubers, always on those 

 which were under severely diseased haulms. It appears to 

 begin in all instances from the outside, and the conditions 

 suggest that the skin of the tuber is the part infected. This 

 would suggest that the zoospores are water-borne from the 

 leaves into the soil below, and thus give support to an opinion 

 for long extensively entertained. After many weeks of dry 

 weather we have recently had some very heavy rains. 



OUR PORTRAIT GALLERY. 



See Frontispiece. 



We offer our readers, with the present number, as a 

 beginning of our Portrait Gallery, two portraits without 

 names or comments. In our next will be given the names, 

 a short description of physiognomical characteristics, and 

 a space-for-time biographical schedule. In the interval 

 the reader is left to exercise his powers of observation in 

 deciphering the features and allotting the intellectual traits 

 they may seem to imply. It is intended to continue these 

 portraits for at any rate some months, and, should they prove 

 acceptable, perhaps indefinitely. They may, in not a few 

 instances, and to not a few readers, be recognisable. This, 

 however, will probably not always be the case, and often, 



