‘Pwdre Ser’ (The Rot of the Stars)

PERHAPS I may be allowed to reopen a subject which gave rise to a very interesting correspondence in NATURE in 1910. I refer to the mysterious jelly-like substance found lying about in open spaces, and popularly connected with `shooting-stars,' about which Prof. T. McKenny Hughes contributed an interesting article to these columns on June 23, 1910. Many suggestions as to the origin of this substance were made both by Prof. Hughes and by later correspondents, but no definite conclusion seems to have been reached. Of course it cannot be taken for granted that the `jelly' is always of the same nature. It may well be that the `jellies' recorded by some observers were the plasmodia of Myxomycetes, or masses of Nostoc or some other organism. But it seems to have been suggested so early as 1667 by Merrett that the jelly consisted of the viscera of frogs. He says (I quote from Prof. Hughes) ``... Regiae Societati palam ostendi solummodo oriri ex intestinis ranarum a corvis in unum locum congestis, quod aliis etiam ejusdem societatis viri praestantissimi postea confirmarunt''.