and flattened on the faces which are united to the
suspenders, or it resembles a slightly elongated cask. The membrane
thickens considerably, and consists at the time of maturity of two
superposed integuments; the exterior or epispore is solid, of a dark
blackish-blue colour, smooth on the plane faces in contact with the
suspenders, but covered everywhere else with thick warts, which are
hollow beneath. The endospore is thick and composed of several layers,
colourless, and covered with warts, which correspond and fit into
those of the epispore. The contents of the zygospore are a coarsely
granular protoplasm, in which float large oleaginous drops. While the
zygospore is increasing in size, the suspender of the smaller
copulative cell becomes a rounded and stipitate utricle, often divided
at the base by a septum, and which attains almost to the size of the
zygospore. The suspender of the larger copulative cell preserves its
primitive form and becomes scarcely any larger. It is rare that there
is not a considerable difference of size between the two conjugated
cells and the suspenders.[E]

Similar conjugation with like results also takes place in _Syzygites
megalocarpus_. In this species the germination of the zygospores has
been observed. If, after a certain time of repose, these bodies are
placed on a moist substratum, they emit a germ-like tube, which,
without originating a proper mycelium, develops at the expense of the
nutritive material stored in the zygospore into a carpophore or fruit
bearer, which is many times dichotomously branched, bearing terminal
sporangia characteristic of the species.

It has already been remarked by us that the _Saprolegnei_ are claimed
by some authors as Algae, whilst we are more disposed to regard them as
closely allied to the Mucors, and as they exhibit in themselves strong
evidence in support of the existence of sexual reproduction, we cannot
forbear giving a summary of what has been observed by De Bary and
others in this very interesting and singular group of plants, to which
M. Cornu has recently dedicated an exhaustive monograph.[F]

In _Saprolegnia monoica_, and others, the female organs consist of
oogonia--that is to say, of cells which are at first globose and rich
in plastic matter, which most generally terminate short branches of
the mycelium, and which are rarely seen in an interstitial position.
The constitutive membrane of the adult oogonia is reabsorbed in a
great many