1t
it
no organized beings are ever produced from such solutions as
contain matters fit to nourish minute animals or vegetables,
though where proper precautions have not been taken to exclude
the possibility of their access, they exist in myriads.
That the spores of Fungi do get access somehow or other
into very unexpected places is quite another question, and,
like many other obscure matters of natural history, may some
time or other meet with an easy explanation.*
* Since the ahove was written, De Bary has stated his views more explicitly
respecting the Myxogasires. In Lgcogala epidendrum he figures filaments
vei-y like those o f Basygloia, a genus of fresh-water Algie. I t appears also, as
Mr. Cnrrey has seen in Trichia, tiiat the young germinjiting spores in many
species assume the characters of zoospores; but this does not prove that these
preductions are animals any more than that those Algaj in which zoospores
occur, are so. Still less does the existence o f sarcode tend to this conclusion,
when it is remembered that cellulose, tho peculiar distinctive mark in vCj
structure, occurs in undoubted animals.
CHAPTER HI.
HABITATS OF FU N G I.
I t is difficult to point out any substance or situation where
conditions exist capable of supporting vegetation, in which
Fungi, in one or other of their forms, may not be developed.
The general notion is that Fungi are essentially the creatures
of decay; but this notion arises only from a very limited apprehension
of the objects comprised under the name; for not
only do we find them on putrescent logs or vegetables, hut
they occur sometimes on hare flints, on glass,—as on our
window-panes and the lenses of microscopes,—or even on
smooth metallic surfaces; hut they establish themselves also
in the most poisonous solutions, and in fluids where no decomposition
has at present taken place. But more than this,
they are found on living structures, whether animal or vegetable,
at whose expense they grow. About fifteen years since,
when so much was said and written about Fungi in consequence
of the interest which was attached to the potato murrain,
it was a favourite dictum, even amongst men of some
pretensions to science, that Fungi could not grow upon healthy
substances. I t is, however, now a well-established fact that
the most healthy tissues may he affected by Fungi, though
they rapidly become diseased under their influence. Deferring