22 
Lister . — Notes on the Plasmodium of 
much within the limits of the bubble, and will spread out 
in the most delicate reticulation. I have watched such an 
object for hours with a T V immersion lens, when every granule 
and particle of food-matter was brilliantly defined, but I have 
not been able to distinguish with certainty any trace of the 
nuclei ; though when I took away the bit of blotting-paper 
and allowed the pressure of the cover-slip to kill the plas- 
modium, and water at the same time to mix with it, almost 
immediately the whole field was seen closely beset with well- 
defined nuclei (Fig. n). 
From the fact -that the nuclei are invisible when surrounded 
with living protoplasm, it is not surprising that the process of 
their multiplication is difficult and perhaps impossible to 
observe. That the nuclei multiply with the increase of the 
plasmodium, there is no question. As before stated, I have 
cultivated large quantities of Badhamia plasmodium from a 
very small centre, and stainings taken at any time, whether 
on the eve of the change to sporangia, or many weeks before, 
are invariably found to swarm with nuclei. 
In the stainings we find that, as a rule, the nuclei are of the 
same size, and each possesses a single nucleolus ; at the same 
time, we not unfrequently meet with forms which suggest that 
division was taking place. This appearance was especially 
frequent in the plasmodium of Brefeldia , before referred to, the 
stainings of which were taken several days before the spore- 
formation occurred in the part remaining at the foot of the fir- 
stump. We notice in these forms the presence of two nucleoli 
taking a relative position in the two halves of the nucleus, and 
occasionally we meet with three nucleoli in the same nucleus 
(Fig. ia). 
In the figure taken from stainings of Brefeldia , the difference 
in size is partly owing to the stretching of the nuclei in the thin 
film of plasmodium. 
In concluding these notes I would just refer to the last 
office we see performed by the nuclei. 
If a sporangium of Badhamia , taken about twenty-four hours 
after it has assumed its ultimate shape, but before the spores 
