144 Obser. dions on Mucor Mueedo. l^jouS!\,St^fJm} 
cate outline, in chains, as Torulae (j). In all the examinations — 
and they were very numerous — excessively few of these chain- 
spores were seen, whilst the field was often suddenly flooded hy 
the schizonematous (?) httle bodies, (?) hacteria. 
Examining the ordinary ripe spores with medium and high 
powers, the surface was noticed as (irregularly) finely corrugated. 
This is mentioned as any point elucidatory or diagnostic of one 
kind of spore compared with another, should such difference be 
found confirmatory, is of value when we approach the examination 
of atmospheric germs, and those of lichens of similar size and colour. 
In the following experiments was sought, firstly, the germi- 
nation of the spores from one of the ripe and unripe heads on a 
different fruit ; hence one of each, so far as I could judge by close 
examination, was placed on a strawberry, on a white gooseberry, 
and on a red gooseberry, all being carefully wiped, the latter having 
had the skin joundured at one spot where the ripe spore was placed. 
These were set together in a glass vessel covered with a glass top, 
and put aside in a semi-dark place in my room (shelves with a sheet 
of newspaper fastened in front). In twenty- four hours, by hand- 
lens, no visible change ; in forty-eight hours the ripe head had sent 
out a few filaments in the red gooseberry; the unripe head was 
removed with fine forceps ; no change of the spores on the other 
fruits. Very little moisture had exuded from the puncture of the 
skin in the red gooseberry. In seventy-two hours the whole vessel 
was lined with a most charming crop of mucor-heads in all stages 
of growth, mostly adherent by their rootlets against the sides of the 
vessel ; the other fruits were covered with the mycelium only, show- 
ing no germination of the spores which had been placed on them. 
They were carefully removed, with the mycehoid threads upon 
them ; an examination was at once made of very many of the little 
plants, and the red gooseberry taken out. The part where it rested 
in the vessel was softened and somewhat decomposed, very moist, 
and covered with a thick byssoid matting. The juice beneath 
(about two large drops) was at once examined for the little schizo- 
nematous bodies; sure enough they were there, but very few in 
quantity compared with those from the mucor on the cherry. 
Some from the mycelium on the cherry was at once set in some 
juice from a fresh ripe red gooseberry on prepared slides with thin 
covers, one slide set in a glass vessel and placed in a dark cupboard, 
the other in the light, i. e. in a deep tin vessel with a glass cover, 
each having wet rag at the bottom. At the same time, for com- 
parison, a slide containing yeast-cells from a fresh cask of beer, with 
small cells and numerous genuine hacteria and active molecules, 
was set in the cupboard, under the same conditions ; twenty-four 
hours later the spores from mucor had become somewhat larger in 
both, and the movements less free in the slide placed in the dark. 
