216 
ON THE PILOBOLID.E. 
kept up, the turgidity of the stem and swelling continues 
unimpaired. 
Otto F. Muller, in 1778, announced the discovery of anew 
species of zoophyte, in the true meaning of that word. He 
had met with some specimens of Pilobolus, in the midst 
of which he thought he saw a slender worm-like body 
residing, which, as he says, “ crawled round in the crystal 
globe, and seemed to swim at its ease in a tiny ocean.” 
The worm-like body was undoubtedly a species of Anguillula, 
such as are very common on the same habitats which 
Pilobolus affects ; but how he conceived it to be within the 
globe is hard to say. These little Anguillulse will penetrate 
wherever there is moisture; they may often be found crawling 
over the stem or sporange, and in many of the dew-drops 
which adorn the stem. It is amusing to watch them in such 
a situation, twisting themselves in incessant snake-like 
contortions in a sphere of liquid of diameter scarcely equal 
to their own length. When seen with a lens of low magni¬ 
fying power it might be thought that the animal was within 
the swelling of the Pilobolus. Moreover, a stem which has 
not yet formed its sporange sometimes excretes the watery 
fluid which constitutes the dew-drops in such quantity at its 
very apex as to form a large transparent globe (Fig. 2), which 
might, at a hasty glance, or with only rough means of 
amplification, be taken to be a part of the plant; a stem 
which has projected its sporange sometimes, though more 
rarely, does the same ; in these globes the Anguillulae are 
often seen. Durieu de Maisonneuve and Leveille both also 
believed that they had seen the worms within the plant. 
But other observers have always denied the fact, and it is 
plain that the error arose from the use of insufficient magni¬ 
fying power. A specimen sent to Van Beneden by Coemans 
was determined to be Rhabditis terricola, Dujardin, but more 
than one species occurs in this way. Coemans also found 
certain Infusoria, which he figures,* on the outside of a 
Pilobolus, but these I have not met with. 
i .— The Basal Reservoir. 
The basal reservoir of Pilobolus is usually of a roundish 
form (but in one species almost cylindrical), and presents a 
very different appearance according as it is sunk in the matrix 
or elevated above it. This arises from the fact that, even 
after the stem has grown up to maturity, there still remains a 
great quantity of yellow granular substance in the reservoir, 
* Monograpliie, pi. ii., fig. D. 
