Badhamia utricularis and Brefeldia maxima . 3 
The consumption of the Corticium was so interesting a 
fact that I exhibited specimens of the hornbeam bark with 
the Corticium in the act of being invaded by the plasmodium 
at a meeting of the Linnean Society. I also showed under 
the microscope the streaming plasmodium on a glass plate. 
The difficulty of obtaining satisfactory observations when 
the plasmodium is spread over an exposed surface led me 
to cultivate it in glass boxes suitable for examination on 
the stage of the microscope (Fig. 5 ). The boxes are easily 
made, with two sides of thin glass measuring three by two 
inches fitted with wood ends half an inch wide, and a glass 
bottom, the whole fastened together with stiff glue and 
varnished at the points of junction and over the wood with 
Canada balsam ; a glass slip half an inch wide serves as a 
cover secured with an elastic band ; in such boxes the plas- 
modium can be kept for any length of time in a damp 
atmosphere. 
Besides the Corticium before mentioned, most effused fungi 
as well as thin species of Daedalea and Polyporus , especially 
P. versicolor and P. adustus, afford good nourishment to the 
plasmodium of Badhamia , though in cultivation these are 
apt to grow Mucor which leads to the decay of the plas- 
modium if allowed to spread ; but its favourite food is Stereum 
hirsutum , a fungus that abounds on logs of oak and horn- 
beam, and on which Badhamia is constantly found during 
the winter months. With this we have no trouble from 
Mucor , while it is so rich a pabulum that in April and May 
of last year I cultivated plasm odia thickly covering an area 
of at least thirty inches, all of which had grown from a small 
quantity creeping over a piece of Stereum about the size 
of a half-crown with which I commenced operations on 
April 6 ; and in addition to this plasmodium which remained 
in a creeping state, an equal amount had changed into 
sporangia in glass boxes or under bell-jars. 
Although the plasmodium grew very rapidly during the 
summer, and showed such vigour that it frequently spread 
completely over the glass shades placed over the piles of 
