10 THE NORTH AMERICAN SLIME-MOULDS 



Dr. Schrocter, a recent writer on the subject, after showing 

 the probable connection between the phycochromaceous Algse 

 and the simplest colorless forms, namely, the Schizomycetes, 

 goes on to remark : " At the same point where the Schizomy- 

 cetous series take rise, there begin certain other lines of 

 development among the most diminutive protoplasmic masses. 

 . . . Through the amoebae one of these lines gives rise on the 

 one hand to rhizopods and sponges in the animal kingdom, on 

 the other to the Myxomycetes among the fungi." This ranges 

 the Myxomycetes, in origin at least, near the Schizomycetes. 



The recent studies of Dr. Thaxter, resulting in the discovery 

 and recognition of a new group, a new order of the Schizomy- 

 cetes, strikingly confirm the judgment of Schroeter. 1 Here 

 we have forms that strangely unite characteristics of both the 

 groups in question. If on the one hand the Myxobacteria are 

 certainly Schizomycetes, on the other they just as certainly 

 offer in their developmental history " phenomena closely 

 resembling those presented by plasmodia or pseudo-plas- 

 modia. . . ." Now the Schizophytes certainly pass by gra- 

 dations easy to the filamentous Algae, and so to relationship 

 with the world of plants, and the discovery of the Myxobacteri- 

 acae brings the Myxomycetes very near the vegetable kingdom 

 if not within it. 



All authorities agree that the Myxomycetes have no connec- 

 tion in the direction of upward development, " Keinen An- 

 schluss nach oben " ; if then their only relationship with other 

 organisms is to be found at the bottom (centre) of the series 

 only, it is purely a matter of indifference whether we say plant 

 or animal, for at the only point where there is connection there 

 is no distinction. 



But why call them either animals or plants ? Was Nature 

 then so poor that forsooth only two lines of differentiation 

 were at the beginning open for her effort ? May we not rather 

 believe that Life's tree may have risen at first in hundreds of 

 tentative trunks of which two have become in the progress of 



1 Botanical Gazette, XVIL, pp. 389, etc.; 1892. 



