156 
THE SALJION DISEASE. 
tlireads without joints, and a thick forest of minute transparent 
clubs. 
When the fungus is enlarged to 200 diameters the general ap- 
pearance is like the representation in the accompanying engraving. 
The supporting threads are seen at the base, and these give rise to 
thick filaments filled with protoplasm. The protoplasm, a, b, c, 
rapidly becomes difierentiated into zoospores, d, e, f, and these 
bodies float out of an orifice which opens in the apex of the club- 
like filament. The zoospores are each furnished with two fine hair- 
like flagellee, or tails, g, h, after the style of the zoospores in the 
fungus of the Potato disease. In the specimens of fish I Lave 
examined from the Esk and Eden, the parasitic fungus and all its 
individual parts have been uncommonly variable in size, so that a 
species maker might almost make as many species of fungi as of 
fish. The club-shaped heads are generally rounded when the para- 
sites grow on salmon, and the apex suddenly goes to a point on 
the trout. The resting-spores are common enough ; they are con- 
tained in globular flasks, as at j, k. Both zoospores and resting- 
spores appear to be most eager to germinate, especially the former, 
for in many instances I have seen them germinating whilst still in 
the parent sac, as at l. 
If asked for a reason for the uncommon abundance of the fungus 
this year, I should be inclined to refer it to the extraordinary mild- 
ness of the late winter. Severe weather, or a sudden change of 
temperature, will generally collapse fungi of the nature of Sapro- 
legnia ferax, as will several dilute chemical infusions, and that 
without damaging the fish ; but an experiment, though successful 
in an aquarium, might possibly fail in a large liver. 
The fungus has been described as infesting the dead, as well as 
the living, fish ; but with me the fungus has invariably vanished 
with the death of the fish. Dead, fish are certainly covered with a 
white cottony coating, but on an examination of this flocculent 
mass, under the microscope, it is found to consist wholly of white 
granular matter, consisting of bacteria, monads, &c., and no fungus 
threads or fruit belonging to Saprolegnia ferax can be seen. 
The disease has been so virulent on the Esk, during the present 
spring, that the watchers have in some instances buried as many as 
350 fish in three days between Langholm and Longtown. 
BOTANICAL NOMENCLATUEE. 
We commend to our readers a careful perusal of the papers on 
“ Disputed Questions of Botanical Nomenclature,” in recent num- 
hers of the “Journal of Botany.” It is much to be desired that 
some understanding amongst botanists should be arrived at, with 
the view of checking and diminishing the evils of an inordinate 
multiplication of synonyms. The evil is making itself so univer- 
sally felt, that we hope some definite remedy will result from the 
controversy. 
