480 
DISEASES OF SHEEP. 
the younger fresh plants. Several of these ergots were then 
taken home for chemical and microscopic examination. I 
made a considerable number of sections which exactly coin¬ 
cided with the beautiful and truthful engravings in the paper 
by Tulasne, in the Annates Sc. Nat. for 1853, “ Sur kErgot 
des Glumacees.” While here I must stop to express my 
admiration both at the accuracy of these microscopic deli¬ 
neations and the description of the metamorphoses of this 
curious fungus. I thought that this would be a good oppor¬ 
tunity of studying the growth of this vegetable, and that the 
result of my observations during the following year may 
prove to be of some service in the cause of pharmacy. 
During the next few months I had only the old and nearly 
dead stems of the Lolium on which I could work, but on the 
12th of April I obtained some specimens of the Lolium 
perenne in which the commencement of the inflorescence was 
just to be observed. Soon afterwards I made several sec¬ 
tions of caryopsides, on which were many thousands of 
conidia, which seemed rapidly to multiply and to completely 
fill some of the grains till they protruded far beyond the 
blumes. In two or three days the sclerotium state of the 
mycelium began to change colour and assumed a purplish- 
brown tinge. The sclerotium seemed now to have arrived at 
what w r as formerly termed the t( sphacelia ” condition, and 
was soft, while the upper portion w r as wrinkled. The ex¬ 
terior was white from the growth of the hypliae, which 
seemed to grow with marvellous rapidity till at length only a 
small portion of the pistil remained free. Although the 
conidia w 7 ere so numerous, I never noticed any on the an- 
droecium, even when examined with a one sixth of an inch 
object-glass, while close to them four or five of the caryop¬ 
sides were completely filled with the little conidia, w hich are 
blunt and ellipsoid-bodies, about T o V o mm. to t-otto mm. in 
length, and from -- 0 V 0 to -noVoo- mm. in breadth. They are 
curved and divided into two parts, each part containing a 
nucleus. On touching them with a cirop of diluted sul¬ 
phuric acid, a cilium or minute flagellum w r as extruded, and 
when placed in water had a vibratile motion. On examining 
suspected flour, bread or pastry, the microscope w T ould 
always show these conidia, especially with the addition of a 
little chromic acid. 
In the third w eek of May several small drops of a syrupy 
substance made their appearance on the stem near the spike- 
let. If dissolved in a little distilled water and placed under 
the microscope the solution would be seen to contain the 
conidia, and hence, I suppose, gave rise to the supposition 
