2 1 8 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



yet all the ordinary vegetative and reproductive pheno- 

 mena go on within the chambers of which they are 

 composed. And if we are still to call these non- 

 nucleated chambers c cells, 3 we nevertheless find similar 

 vegetative and reproductive phenomena taking place 

 within structures which certainly have no right to such 

 a name. It appears that Leptomitus^ Saprolegma^ Vau- 

 cheria^ Codwm, Bryopsis^ Caulerpa^ and perhaps other Algae 

 as well as Fungi are branched filiform organisms pre- 

 senting no trace of a cellular structure, although by 

 a strange perversion of language they have been spoken 

 of as 'branched unicellular organisms' by those who 

 were anxious to interpret all facts so as to make them 

 yield to the requirements of an exclusively c cellular' 

 Theory of Organization. At a definite stage in the 

 life of such organisms a partition extends across, near 

 the extremity of certain of the filaments, so as to cut 

 off a small terminal chamber. This chamber enlarges 

 rapidly, and its contents undergo changes such as we 

 have described in Achlya^ speedily leading to the forma- 

 tion of actively moving zoospores. Are such changes 

 due to the properties of the living matter itself, or 

 are they attributable to the mere chamber in which 

 it is enclosed ? Has the growth of the partition sud- 

 denly given rise to a potentiality previously non- 

 existent ? Again, when the Protomyxa contracts, when 

 its living matter devoid of a nucleus condenses ex- 

 ternally, so as to form a cell-wall or cyst, are the 

 phenomena of segmentation which subsequently occur 



