34 ON THE RELATIONSHIP OF AECIDIUM BERBERIDI8, PERS., 
question, by the majority of continental mycologists, by men 
whose acumen is undoubted, and who justly rank in the fore front 
of scientific botany. My mind was in a state of “ expectant 
attention,” but I had no other feeling in the matter, haying never 
committed myself to an opinion either pro or con. 
Before detailing these experiments, there are some circum- 
stances that have certain weight, both for and against, which 
should be fairly stated, in order that a more just opinion may be 
formed than would otherwise be the case. In the first place it may 
be thought that the connection, as different states of the same 
fungus, between an ALcidium and a Puccinia is too wonderful to be 
true. We may readily enough accept the numerous other 
instances of polymorphism afforded by the fungus kingdom, and 
yet be unable to credit that a parasitic fungus can commence its 
life on one plant and finish it upon another, especially when the host 
plants are so far removed from one another, that the one is an 
exogen and the other an endogen. But this alternation of genera- 
tion is well known to exist in other departments of the organic 
world, amongst organisms far higher in the animate scale than 
cryptogams. To take a well-known example afforded by the 
Entozoa , the Tenia mediocanellata (Kiich.) commences its existence 
in the flesh of the ox, as Cysticercus bovis , and finishes it in the 
alimentary canal of man ; or Tenia solium , Linn., which com- 
mences its existence as Cysticercus celluosce in the flesh of the pig, 
and finishes it in the same situation as the first mentioned cestode. 
There exists a widely spread superstition amongst agriculturists, 
which was credited far more extensively by the past generation of 
farmers than it is now, that the presence of a barberry bush was 
connected with the occurrence of mildew in wheat. So much was 
this the case that in most parts of Norfolk the barberry ( Berberis 
vulgaris) has, to a great extent, been exterminated. Now 
nothing tends more to render a statement incredulous to people in 
general and to scientific minds in particular than to brand it with 
the title of superstition. We dislike above all things to be thought 
superstitious, it is derogatory to our intellectual status. Without 
entering upon the question generally, of whether most super- 
stitions have not a strain, however meagre, of truth underlying 
them, this sentiment has not been without considerable influence in 
rendering us chary of accepting the hetercecism of Puccinia 
graminis. It must, however, be borne in mind that the connection 
of barberry bushes with mildewed wheat presumably arose, as a 
matter of observation on the part of our forefathers, when they 
suffered from the pest. 
Leaving these subsidary considerations and for the moment dis- 
carding the element of hetercecism, let us consider whether there 
be any impossibility in the sEcidia generally being the earlier 
states of certain Puccinice. It is presumed that no one now doubts 
the connection of the majority of Uredines with Puccinice , and it 
must be borne in mind that a much greater difference existed in 
