AN OPEN FIELD. 
3 
only the microscope can reveal, and whose study would afford 
an amount of enjoyment which very few are aware of. 
There is no very perfect manual describing these organisms, 
because they have been so much rteglected. Cooke’s Myxomycetes 
of Great Britain is the best book we have on the subject ; it is 
small and inexpensive, translated from the Polish of Rostafinski ; 
the figures are excellent, and it is quite sufficient to set to work 
with. 
If you look among old rotting stumps and fallen branches in 
damp woods or shaded gardens, you are almost sure to find 
groups of little yellow balls like small mustard seeds, on the parts 
of the wood most turned away from the drying winds. If you 
carry home some of these little balls and place one of them on 
a glass slide, and break it up in water with a couple of needles, 
3’ou will find that it is filled with thousands of minute round 
3’^ellow spores. Mixed up with these is a host of delicate yellow 
threads, pointed at each end, and with spiral bands wound round 
them from tip to tip, so that they look like threads of barley 
sugar, or as if you had come upon some fairy ropes. If you 
allow some of the little balls to stand on j'our table and become 
dry, you will see in a day or two that they have burst open of 
their own accord ; the slender threads will stand out in a golden 
tuft, and the spores will be scattered all round. Place this tuft 
under your microscope, and gently breathe on it, and you will 
see the threads twist and writhe about like living snakes. A 
little observation will show you that the spiral bands are very 
sensitive to moisture, and that this twisting movement is caused 
b}'^ their swelling and shrinking. This beautiful contrivance is 
designed to lift the spores out of their membranous case, so that 
the wind may blow them away and carry them to some suitable 
place, where they may germinate and start a fresh growth. 
In Cooke’s book you will find them described under the genus 
Trichia. While you are hunting for these Trichias you are very 
likely to meet with a little forest of slender stalks. At the top 
of each stalk is a little grey ball, about half the size of the 
smallest pin’s head. If you prepare one of these on your glass 
slide, adding a drop of meth^dated spirit before you put the 
water to it to drive away the air, you will see that it is filled 
with purple spores. Among them are delicate branching threads 
like spun glass ; these are attached to the walls and keep them 
from pressing down on the spores while they are drying. When 
the spores are quite ripe the delicate wall of the spore case 
breaks, and they are blown out as the finest dust to float in the 
winds to find another home. These you will find in Cooke’s 
book under the genus Physarum. 
On the same damp rotting stumps you may find a regiment 
of little crimson clubs with short stalks, which form a charming 
object under a low power. While you watch them you may 
chance to see the membranous wall break up, and a marvellous 
tangled network of threads gradually expand to five times the 
