202 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIF. 



was about one-seventieth of an inch in length, but 

 its increased opacity betokened that it was denser, 

 and probably thicker, than it had been at any time 

 in the forenoon, while three or four large and vigorous 

 Amoebre may sometimes be seen disporting themselves 

 in a single field of the microscope ; Biomyxa with its 

 delicate reticulations fully developed pervades four or 

 five fields. 



Adopting the most recent classification, the 

 systematic position of Biomyxa, according to 

 Biitschli, would be: Khizopoda ; Sub-order I., 

 Ainccbixa ; Family Amccbaa retiadosa ; Genus 

 Biomyxa (Leidy) ; there being at present but one 



A,^_ 



I 'I 



lOOO 



( Fig. 179. — Biomyxa vagans. 



species found in the fresh-waters of North America, 

 and we must probably add, of India. In this 

 connection, the presence or absence of a nucleus in 

 these low forms of life is a matter of importance. If 

 a nucleus be present, as it is in the true Amoeba;, we 

 have an organism in at least its original sense — a 

 whole constructed, as Haeckel puts it, from dis- 

 similar parts, viz., an inner nucleus, and an outer 

 cell-matter. If, on the other hand, no nucleus be 

 present, then Biomyxa stands amongst what Haeckel 

 has termed the Monera, " organisms without 

 organs ; " bodies which in a physiological sense can 

 still be called organisms because individual portions 

 of them fulfil the essential life-functions of all true 

 organisms, nourishment, growth and reproduction. 

 He considers that in these homogeneous, structure- 

 less albumen-bodies, spontaneous generation is more 

 easy of conception than it is in the case of a true cell, 

 possessed of a division into plasma and nucleus. 

 Here we may note that the experiments which are so 

 widely held to disprove Abiogeny, or spontaneous 

 generation, dealt rather with the Bacteria than with 

 the Monera. The Monera, according to Haeckel, 

 may "be classed with equal propriety, or rather with 

 equal arbitrariness, as primitive animals, or as 

 primitive plants " : in other words, they may "just as 

 well be regarded as primitive animals or as primitive 



plants " ; and this authority would accordingly 

 consign them to a separate kingdom of primitive 

 forms, the Protista, an ill-defined domain which he 

 places between the animal and vegetable kingdoms. 

 The Monera, then, according to Haeckel cannot with 

 confidence be predicated to be either animals or 

 plants. Leidy himself was not free from doubt with 

 regard to the position which should be assigned to 

 his Biomyxa. He says " It has also been a question 

 with me whether to regard it as a true Rhizopod, or 

 whether to view it as the plasmodium of a fungus. 

 In structure and habit, so far as observed, it seems to 

 accord with the latter rather than with the former, 

 though I have not detected a coalescence of indi- 

 viduals in Biomyxa. Cienkowski has described 

 several organisms related with the latter, of which he 

 regards one as a fresh-water plasmodium, while the 

 others are viewed as Rhizopods ; " that is, as animals. 

 Leidy goes on to say that Cienkowski describes a 

 form of naked rhizopod, with the name of Gymnophrys 

 cometa, which resembles Biomyxa, but differs from it 

 in having no contractile vesicles ; in which respect, 

 again, Leidy says, Biomyxa differs from the nearly 

 related Leptophry of Hertwig and Lesser. For our- 

 selves it is safest, at any rate provisionally, to accept 

 Biitschli's classification given above ; and to recognise 

 with Haeckel, that " we are just at the beginning of 

 our knowledge of these very interesting primordial 

 forms." 



W. J. Simmons. 

 Calcutta. 



Note. — This paper was read at a meeting of the 

 Microscopical Society of Calcutta on the 9th March, 

 1891. 



NATURAL HISTORY NOTES. 



SEEING the account of a diseased rook in the 

 January number of Science-Gossip, I thought 

 I would send the following extract written in 1SS7. 



There has been much mortality among the rooks 

 this winter in this neighbourhood. Under one rook- 

 ery of about fifty couples of birds, about twenty rooks 

 were picked up dead, or were so weak that they could 

 not fly, and were thus easily killed. A small rook- 

 ery round here, which had nearly a dozen nests in 

 the spring of last year (1886), now contains only one 

 nest. At the beginning of the present season there 

 were three, but the rooks from another locality came 

 and destroyed two of them as they were finished. 

 One couple went and built in the rookery from 

 whence their depredators came ; the other single 

 couple continued for a short time and then forsook. 



Two other rookeries, one containing about forty- 

 five nests, and the other thirteen, now contain six- 

 teen in the largest and only six in the other. The 

 number of rooks are thus reduced to about half their 

 former number. 



