208 Hartog.' — Recent Researches 
fuse, the sporange becoming clear and brighter ; the septum, 
previously concave, becomes convex, bulging into the sporange, 
and the rounded cap of the process becomes flat ; the sporange 
has lost its turgescence. Directly afterwards vacuoles appear 
in the protoplasm ; they come and go for some time. 
Closer observation of a favourable object like 5 . Thuretii 
shows that the larger granules have disappeared leaving the 
protoplasm finely granular ; and that the fusion of the spores 
is not complete, they are only in contact, polyhedral and 
separated by fine plane spaces. In many cases however it 
is difficult, in some impossible to see any separation even 
in this species 1 * * * . In others the apparently complete fusion 
may be the rule, the demonstration of separation the ex- 
ception. The interspaces now extend to the wall of the 
sporange, which has now ceased to be a single cell ; the 
‘ origins 5 have become spores. 
Accompanying this stage is often seen a swarming of 
Bacteria from all parts to execute a lively dance round the 
wall of the sporange and at its expiration to scatter anew. On 
one occasion zoospores of S aprolegnia [In which period of 
their diplanetism ? probably the second] behaved in the same 
way. Everything seems in favour of its being some nutri- 
tive substance that attracts the Bacteria rather than oxygen. 
This can only be cell-sap ; and if it passes out in sufficient 
quantities to attract Bacteria, there must be a diminution 
of the volume of the sporange; probably greater than that 
due to the inbulging of the septum and the flattening of 
the process. Measurements gave a shortening of from i 
to 4 per cent. Taking the latter figure the reduction in 
volume would be n*5 per cent., or with that due to the two 
septa 13 per cent. The wall, previously turgescent, now 
contracts with expulsion of cell-sap, and the cause of this 
1 Yet Rothert wrote in the Botanische Zeitung, ‘lasst die Quelhmg bis zur 
volligen Verschmelzung gehen, was nicht richtig ist.’ He sees now that I was 
right in my observation ; and that it needed other favourable objects to obtain the 
correct interpretation ; and I had noticed, as he admits, the incompleteness of the 
homogeneity in S. corcagiensis. 
