266 the president's address. 



was led to ask, " Docs Amoeba belong- to the animal kingdom, or is 

 it a stage of vegetable development ? " 



Finally, Dr. Hicks traced the progress of similar forms from the 

 radicles of mosses kept in water (" Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci.," 18G2, 

 p. 97). "I arrived at the fact," he says, " that the endoplast of 

 many of the elongated cells not nnfrequently detached itself from 

 the contact of the cell wall, and collected into one or more ovoid 

 masses of different sizes." After describing other changes, he thus 

 proceeds — " they gradually began to alter their form, and to 

 protrude and retract processes, exactly as Amoebce, and as was 

 noticed in the Volvox. They travelled up and down the interior of 

 the cells, occasionally elongating themselves into almost a linear 

 form." 



There is evidence then, that movable, living Protean bodies, 

 resembling Amoeba have been found developed from Myxomycetes, 

 Chlamydococcus, Volvox, Stephanosphcera, Chara, and Mosses ; 

 forms not to be distinguished from Amoeba, except by their 

 origin. It may be assumed that no one here present will contend 

 that a true animal Amoeba may have a vegetable parent, but, on the 

 contrary, they will have arrived at the conclusion that there is a 

 closer and more intimate relation between the phenomena of life in 

 plants and animals than we have hitherto been willing to assign. 



It is scarcely necessary in a Society of this kind to remind 

 you of the existence of zoospores in the regular course of 

 development of many Algas, and Fungi. These small unicellular 

 bodies, furnished with vibratile cilia, move about actively in fluids 

 after the manner of infusoria. At first, when their existence was 

 demonstrated, it was contended that they were infusoria developed 

 in the interior of growing plants, and yet it has since been established 

 that they are not animal at all, but simply active spores, which soon 

 become quiescent, germinate, and produce veritable plants like their 

 parent. Not only are they almost universal in Alga3, both marine 

 and fresh water, but in such Fungi as the Saprolegnia of the salmon 

 disease, and its allies ; and in the species of Peronospora and 

 Cystupus they perform an important part in the reproduction of the 

 species. As there was an analogy between the amoeboid forms of 

 the Volvocineoe and the animal Amoebce, so here in the zoospores of 

 cellular cryptogams we encounter organisms analogous to Infusoria. 



In passing, we may refer to the memoir by Professor Meneghini, 

 translated and published by the Ray Society in 1853, entitled, " On 



