1 8 Lister .—Notes on the Plasmodium of 
continued for about half an hour. At 4 P.M. the broad ex- 
tensions of plasmodium suddenly branched out from centres 
into clusters of short diverging branchlets (Fig. 6, a), most 
of which, if not all of them, contained a vacuole. At 4.30 
each branchlet had constricted itself from its neighbour and 
taken a spherical form, the vacuoles disappeared, and the 
whole substance was divided into a multitude of spores (Fig. 
6 , d). In a few hours these had developed their spore-walls, 
and on the following morning had become purple-brown in 
colour, and in every respect resembled those which filled 
the sporangia. The capillitium with its strange many- 
chambered vesicles had already formed in the lower parts 
of the sporangia before any apparent change had taken place 
in the plasmodium at the extremities. 
Brefeldia may be an especially favourable species for 
showing this phenomenon, on account of the extremely thin 
membrane which covers the sporangia, for I have never 
observed this free spore-formation, unconfined by any en- 
closing wall, in any other of the Mycetozoa. 
I now return to the consideration of the resting condition 
referred to in the earlier part of these notes. 
If plasmodium of Badhamia , spread on the side of a glass 
box, falls into an inactive state, a mottled appearance of 
the film is very frequently observed, which is caused by a 
tendency of the granules to draw together in loose groups : 
this passes off if the streaming revives ; but if causes arise 
which produce greater stagnation, the concentration becomes 
more marked, and in process of time the aggregations are 
separated from each other by more or less defined hyaline 
spaces. When this has taken place all streaming has 
ceased, the plasmodium contracts to a thicker mass, and the 
surface is observed to be partitioned into slightly convex 
areas corresponding to the superficial layer of so-called 
sclerotium-cells which have now taken definite form 1 . 
1 See De Bary, Comparative Morphology and Biology of Fungi, Mycetozoa and 
Bacteria, p. 428. 
