282 
ON THE PILOBOLIDiE. 
lie first described it (l.c.) He included it again in liis Fungi 
Mecklenburgenses selecti 1 (1790), where lie mentions a variety 
“ capsula solum liydrophora,” which appears to be merely a 
stem from which the sporange had been projected, and was 
replaced by a pellucid drop. 
Species of Pilobolus are then successively mentioned by 
Dickson (1785), who figured one 2 under the name of Mucor 
urceolatus; by Bolton 3 (1789), who, besides figuring under 
that name a form resembling a badly grown P. Kleinii, adds 
another 4 identical with Petiver’s as Mucor roridus; by 
Bulliard 5 (1790) and by Valil 6 (1792). 
Persoon (1796) gives an excellent description of P. crystal- 
linns in his Gbservationes Mycologicae, 7 accompanied by an 
imperfect figure ; and in his Synopsis Metliodica Fungorum 8 
he mentions both the latter and P. roridus , which he con¬ 
sidered to be a doubtful species. He appears to have fallen 
into the error of imagining the sporange to be projected 
without the columella. 
Link (1809) was the first who attributed 9 the projection 
to the true cause, namely, the tension of the swelling below 
the sporangium, an explanation which is endorsed by De Bary 
in his just published work 10 (1884). 
Ehrenberg, in 1823, published in Kunze und Schmidt’s 
Mykologische Hefte 11 an account of some observations he 
had made upon P. crystallinus, in which, while searching 
for Otto Muller’s “ worm,” he noticed a curious movement 
of yellowish particles arranged in a snake-like form in a 
drop of water which occupied the summit of the sporange. 
He inclined to the opinion that this was what Muller had 
seen, but we know that in this he was mistaken. It is 
probable that it was only a small stream of the contents of 
an immature sporange protruding through an injured part 
into a “ dew-drop,” and the “ slow, steady, circling motion” 
which so excites his wonder, is nothing more than evapora¬ 
tion of the drop might easily produce. 
1 Part i., p. 41. 
2 Fasc. Plant. Crypt. Brit., i., 25, pi. 3, fig. G. 
3 Hist. Fnng. pi. 133, fig. 1. 
^ L.c., pi. 132, fig. 4. 
5 Champ, i., Ill, pi. 480, fig, 1. 
6 Flor. Dan., vi., fig. 1080. 
7 Part i., 76, pi. 4, figs. 9—11. 
8 Part i., pp. 117—8. 
9 Obs. Plant., part 4. 
10 Vergleich. Morpli. u. Biol. Pilze, p. 77. 
11 Myk. Heft., ii., pp. 70-G. 
