38 
SELECTED ARTICLES. 
specimens were kindly given me, and Mr. Smith did not say 
he was, or had been working, at the subject, more than watch- 
ing the grass externally, and he told me that he conceived the 
liquid on the spike (the "certain fluid" of F. B.) to be deposit- 
ed or produced by a peculiar fly that was often seen on the 
grass, and which fly he imagined to be more or less connected 
with the formation of the ergot, as the cynips is with the nut- 
gall. 
About a week after, having examined, by the aid of the 
microscope, the specimens I myself brought from Kew, I 
wrote for more, and mentioned that " I had discovered the 
whole secret," as I then thought, for I had found the fluid to 
consist of sporules, which could not be any excrementitious 
fluid of a fly; which sporules, sporidia, or jointed bodies, were, 
I conceived, the reproductive particles of a fungus, — of what 
kind I then had not made out. 
In a letter sent me by Mr. Smith, bearing date of October 
15, 1838, my request is acknowledged, and he offers to bring 
me the specimens to my house, which was done, and in the 
same note he mentions that he had not seen the fly lately, but 
had collected the fluid, and found sporules also, in which he 
meant to steep grains, for the purpose of making them pro- 
duce ergots when they grew to perfection. When Mr. Smith 
was with me, I showed him specimens of the ergot under my 
own microscope, and pointed out that the relation of the ergot 
to the styles and scales, at the bottom of the flower, was pre- 
cisely that of the healthy grain, and neither of us at that pe- 
riod knew how to account for the sporules in any way being 
capable of producing an ergot. 
I heard nothing more of Mr. Smith's investigations till we 
met at the Linnsean Society, on November 6, when a paper 
was read on the ergot by Mr. Smith, the printed abstract of 
which F. B. has published in full. After the reading I be- 
lieve I uttered the words to Mr. Smith, "you are wrong" 
(which F. B. seems to be acquainted with,) because I did then 
differ in opinion from some of the points in that paper. 
Now the truth must be told, that the abstract of Mr. Smith's 
