48 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
All of the cells contain two nuclei which may lie close together 
but are more frequently separated by the entire length of the 
cell. In the Y shaped cells I have generally found one nucleus 
in each of the arms. 
In my cultures the hyphal masses developed into carpophores 
only when they were formed near the surface or some break in 
the agar. A large number of small tangled masses were formed 
throughout the cultures but they did not develop into carpo¬ 
phores. Fig. 18 is from a section through a young carpophore 
which is developing from one of these tangles. The mass* of 
hyphae is much larger than in the earlier stages but it shows the 
same structure. A large number of hyphae are found converg¬ 
ing from different directions in the substratum to form by the 
interlacing of their branches near the surface of the agar this 
large tangled mass. The hyphae are so closely packed and so 
crooked that it is impossible to trace the cells their entire length 
but as far as I can determine they are in all cases binucleated. 
The hyphae outside of the tangled mass that are growing towards 
it and whose branches form the tangle invariably have binu¬ 
cleated cells. In the younger tangles the cells are binucleated 
and in this large hyphal mass the nuclei are usually found in 
pairs. 
A more complete series of young carpophores of Coprimes 
ephemerus were obtained from dung cultures in the green house. 
By fixing the young carpophores when they first appear as 
small white dots on the substratum the main stages in the early 
development of the fruit body are very easily obtained. They 
are very similar to the corresponding stages of Coprinus ster- 
corarius as described by Brefeld. 
The very young carpophore is an oval body formed by a cen¬ 
tral mass of closely tangled hyphae and an outer covering of 
very loosely interlaced hyphae. The hyphae near the center are 
copiously branched. The branches branch in turn and gradually 
force their way upward and outward, the density of the tangle 
becoming less as they grow farther from the center until they 
are only loosely woven together at the surface forming the outer 
covering. The cells of all the hyphae are very short and are 
densely filled with a finely vacuolated cytoplasm. They are reg- 
