14
THE MYCETOZOA.
in the British Isles ; a few notes are also given on those to be
found elsewhere.
In this classification of the different habitats we begin
with that of woodland. Under wood may be included various
kinds of timber, living trunks, logs, tree-stumps, and fallen
branches. Kindred habitats are sawdust-heaps and tan-
yards. Next, we have the habitat of decaying leaves, occur-
ring either in sheltered woodland, or more exposed in ditches
and hedge-sides. Straw-heaps prove to be a fruitful nursery
for many kinds of Mycetozoa. Somewhat similar habitats are
to be found in heaps of old straw-manure, and the weathered
dung of herbivorous animals. Pastures and lawns, both lowland
and alpine, form other haunts of Mycetozoa. Heaths, open
moorland, and sphagnum-bogs have yielded interesting species.
A distinct habitat is to be found on mossy rocks in mountain
ravines. Finally, we have other habitats in bare earth, living
leathery, fungi and lichens, and old bones.
These habitats may now be referred to in detail, and mention
made of some of the species of Mycetozoa usually associated
with them, a fuller list of which will be found at the end of
this section.
Woodlands. Undisturbed woodlands form, undoubtedly,
our richest hunting grounds. Coniferous Woods may be dealt
with first. On living coniferous trees, I know of hardly any
instances of Mycetozoa having been found ; the bark is usually
bare or supports too scanty a growth of lichen to collect vegetable
mould, which might serve as food for plasmodium. But decaying
coniferous logs and stumps are the home of a large number of
Mycetozoa. Here only are found the smooth sooty aethalia of
Amaurochaete fuliginosa, whose white plasmodium often emerges
on wood that has been recently felled. Most of the elegant species
of Cribraria occur only on coniferous wood, and the same may be
said for the inconspicuous sporangia of Licea. Licea flexuosa
is often extremely abundant on stumps and chips of Scots pine,
in moist autumn weather. The noble spruce woods clothing
the lower slopes of the Swiss Alps afford an ideal hunting ground
for species of Cribraria.
On fir wood also occur (though not on that only) the purple-
brown tufts of Stemonitis splendens, the jewel-like sporangia of
Lamproderma echinulatum and the red fluffy masses of Arcyria