Classification, 65 



dice, but this proof was the outcome of prolonged and 

 laborious investigations, considered by De Bary as 

 being absolutely necessary to prove his point. This 

 discovery naturally suggested the idea that numerous 

 other corresponding forms included in the same group 

 might be in like manner connected, and in many 

 instances careful experiments have proved this to be 

 the case, but at the same time we find in modern 

 works on the TJredinese forms associated tosrether 

 on the merest shadow of proof, such as would 

 certainly not have been accepted by De Bary as con- 

 clusive. Similar examples of rushing to conclusions 

 from analogy only are met with in every group ; in fact 

 this slipshod method of relying on analogy, when 

 once a precedent has been clearly established, seems 

 to be the weak point with the disciples of the modern 

 school. The divisions called Mvlanconiese, Sph^rop- 

 sidese, and Hijphomycetes include over eight thousand 

 species from all parts of the world. Out of this number 

 less than one hundred have been clearly proved by 

 cultures to be forms of species belonging mostly to 

 the Ascomycetes, yet on the strength of this small 

 percentage of proved cases, the three groups are 

 entirely omitted in the schemes of classification given 

 by De Bary and Brefeld, implying that all are con- 

 sidered merely as form -species, a supposition which 

 may be quite correct, but far from being proved, and 

 not altogether countenanced by the investigations of 

 these same authors, who claim to have shown that in 

 some of the Ascomycetes the gonidial stage is com- 

 pletely lost. De Bary and his followers do not as a 

 rule accept the " special creation " theory^ but judg*- 



ing from their writings, consider that species are 



r 



