Mutinus caninus ( Huds) y Fr . 347 
The fructification, or compound gonidiophore, in the stages 
before elongation of its stipe has occurred, is commonly called 
an c egg.’ The eggs usually arise at the ends of fine lateral 
branches of the mycelial strands, but they are occasionally 
found sessile laterally on the strands. 
Young Stages. 
First egg. — The youngest body that I have been able to 
recognize from its microscopic structure as an egg, and not 
the mere vegetative tip of a mycelial strand, is shown in 
median longitudinal section in Fig. 1. It was a soft, hyphal 
body having a length of § mm. and a transverse diameter of 
^ mm. The mycelial strand bearing it had a diameter of 40 /x. 
A bundle of about half a dozen hyphae M, Fig. i, extends 
from the medullary portion of the mycelial strand up through 
the middle of the section into its upper portion. There the 
bundle branches, forming a dense, sheaf-like head N of inter- 
lacing and anastomosing hyphal branches very difficult to 
follow. The rest of the section is a more open structure C, 
consisting of loosely interlacing hyphae curving and branching 
and crossing in all directions. At the base of the egg, hyphae 
from the cortical portion of the mycelial strand may be 
followed up into this tissue C y where they branch, curve about, 
have the characteristic form of the tissue, and soon become 
lost by leaving the plane of the section. One such hypha is 
indicated by e. 
Several eggs in this stage of development have been met 
with in preparing a complete series of stages. Rarely a 
hypha from the medullary bundle M will send out a branch 
into the cortical portion C, but here it immediately takes on 
the characters of this portion, and curves in and out among 
the other hyphae, branching as they do. In the mycelial 
strand such branches occasionally pass from the medullary 
into the cortical portion and become a part of it. 
Contrary to the idea that has prevailed, these three parts 
of the egg — C, the continuation in the egg of the cortical 
