766 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts 9 and Letters. 
companied by a great increase of surface area of the protoplasm. 
A minute, compact, rounded mass, sessile on the substratum, 
obviously exposes in its contracted reticulum much less surface 
than the same plasmodium when later it has crept upward and 
has become spread in a fine, attenuated network over the entire 
surface of the cylindrical sporophore. Fuligo apparently ceases 
its creeping movements with the compact, sessile mass and forma 
its spores endogenously; Ceratiomyxa , on the other hand, sim¬ 
ilarly heaps up on the substratum, but afterward resumes its 
upward creeping, and finally forms its spores exogenously. 
This peculiar increase of exposed surface of the fructifying 
protoplasm of Ceratiomyxa seemingly places the fructification 
at a disadvantage in one respect. Increased surface w T ould 
apparently allow increased absorption of water from the 
watery, gelatinous matrix in which the protoplasmic network 
is imbedded, and thus counteract to a certain extent the general 
contraction and condensation of the mass as a whole, which is 
characteristic for such fructifying bodies (Harper, ’00, p. 
249). Hut it must be remembered that the plasmodial net¬ 
work is constantly creeping upward, away from the moist sub¬ 
stratum, and also peripherally, away from the moist, gelati¬ 
nous axis of the sporophore. The peripheral position of tne 
attenuated strands would doubtless thus be of advantage for n- 
creased evaporation, rather than for increased absorption of 
water. We may indeed readily imagine that loss of water and 
general shrinkage of the protoplasm go on faster in the case of 
such a fine network than from the compact fructification of 
Fuligo . 
Apparently as long as the growth of the visible part of the 
sporophore of Ceratiomyxa endures, the increase of protoplas¬ 
mic surface continues. I have not traced back the condition 
of the vegetative reticulum as it exists in the pores of the wood. 
While it is indeed probable that the reticulum in this early 
condition may resemble closely certain expanded stages of the 
fructifying protoplasm, I doubt, judging from the conditions 
in ordinary plasmodia, that these early stages ever attain the 
degree of attenuation found in the advanced sporophores. At 
