LISTER : THE HAUNTS OF THE MYCETOZOA. 
3*5 
hopeless [he writes] to send sporangia on soil by post, unless 
they happen to occur on sunbaked wormcasts.” 3 He obtained 
a fine development of Physarella oblonga on such a situation. 
On another occasion, Mr. Farquharson discovered the sporangia 
of Perichaena depressa on dead roots some distance under¬ 
ground. 
At the present time, when the prevalence of Protozoa in soil 
is found to impair greatly its nutritive value for growing crops, 
the question of Mycetozoa feeding in earth has a special interest, 
and more information on the subject would be welcome. 
Living Fungi. —The habitat of living fungi is familiar to 
us from the well-known example of Badhamia utricularis, which 
feeds on the leathery fungi abounding in wet seasons on fallen 
logs in Epping Forest ; in other parts of Britain and elsewhere, 
it appears to be far less common. Its relative, Badhamia 
nitens, with bright yellow instead of iridescent grey sporangia, 
also feeds on leathery fungi, but far less exclusively. Another 
species, which may possibly obtain its food from living fungi, 
is Trichamphora pezizoidea ; the conspicuous saucer-shaped 
sporangia, balanced on long stalks, have been found repeatedly 
on the gelatinous lobes of Auricularia mesenterica growing from 
old willows, but whether the fungus or dead wood has been the 
host is not clear. Trichamphora is an abundiant species in the 
tropics and has been obtained several times in Europe. There 
seems no reason why it may not be met with in the British Isles 
also. 
Living Lichens. —On this habitat occurs Hymenobolus para¬ 
siticus, a curious species differing from the true Mycetozoa in that 
the spores give rise to amoeboid bodies, which unite to form 
plasmodia without passing through a flagellate stage ; the 
plasmodium also does not exhibit the characteristic rhythmic 
circulation, but only sluggish irregular internal movements 
and, instead of spreading in a network of veins, it slowly burrows 
into the lichen thallus, on the living hyphae of which it feeds : 
when abundant, the plasmodia can just be detected with the 
naked eye as rosy specks scattered over the surface of various 
species of Parmclia, and there they form sporangia. That 
they can be more active was noted by Mr. Cran, who found 
3 *'Notes on South Nigerian Mycetozoa,” by C. O. Farquharson and G. Lister, 
Journal of Botany , liv., 123. 
