LISTER ! THE HAUNTS OF THE MYCETOZOA. 303 
moss, and so on. Thus it comes about that we may expect to 
find certain species associated with certain situations. 
In the following paper, an attempt is made to classify and 
describe the principal types of habitat favoured by Mycetozoa 
in the British Isles ; a few notes are also given on those to be 
found elsewhere. 
In this classification of the different habitats we begin 
with that of woodland. Under wood may be included various 
kinds of timber, living trunks, logs, tree-stumps, and fallen 
branches. Kindred habitats are sawdust-heaps and tan- 
yards. Next, we have the habitat of decaying leaves, occur¬ 
ring either in sheltered woodland, or more exposed in ditches 
and hedge-sides. Straw-heaps prove to be a fruitful nursery 
for many kinds of Mycetozoa. Somewhat similar habitats are 
to be found in heaps of old straw-manure, and the weathered 
dung of herbivorous animals. Pastures and lawns, both lowland 
and alpine, form other haunts of Mycetozoa. Heaths, open 
moorland, and sphagnum-bogs have yielded interesting species. 
A distinct habitat is to be found on mossy rocks in mountain 
ravines. Finally, we have other habitats in bare earth, living 
leathery fungi and lichens, and old bones. 
These habitats may now be referred to in detail, and mention 
made of some of the species of Mycetozoa usually associated 
with them, a fuller list of which will be found at the end of 
this section. 
Woodlands. Undisturbed woodlands form, undoubtedly, 
•our richest hunting grounds. Coniferous Woods may be dealt 
with first. On living coniferous trees, I know of hardly any 
instances of Mycetozoa having been found ; the bark is usually 
bare or supports too scanty a growth of lichen to collect vegetable 
mould, which might serve as food for plasmodium. But decaying 
coniferous logs and stumps are the home of a large number of 
Mycetozoa. Here only are found the smooth sooty aethalia of 
Amaurochaete fuliginosa, whose white plasmodium often emerges 
on wood that has been recently felled. Most of the elegant species 
of Cribraria occur only on coniferous wood, and the same may be 
said for the inconspicuous sporangia of Licea. Licea flexuosa 
is often extremely abundant on stumps and chips of Scots pine, 
in moist autumn weather. The noble spruce woods clothing 
the lower slopes of the Swiss Alps afford an ideal hunting ground 
for species of Cribraria. 
