ZOOLOGY. 415 



Such are the most prominent mori)hological and physiological features 

 of the group in question. No suspicions had ever been entertained as 

 to their existence as plants until a discovery by Dr. A. De Barry, about 

 the J ear 1859. That naturalist investigated the development of these 

 organisms. "The spores, on careful cultivation, were found to give 

 rise not to jointed cellular hyphte, but to flagellate monadiform germs^ 

 possessing locomotive faculties^ a spheroidal nucleus or endoplast, one or 

 more contractile vacuoles, and the faculty of ingesting solid food sub- 

 stances. After a short interval these germs, retracting their flagella, 

 assumed an amoeboid repent phase, and, coalescing freelj' with their 

 neighbors, built up the so-called gelatinous or pulpy masses out of 

 which the si^orangia, or peridia, were developed." In view of such 

 manifestations, Dr. De Barry deemed himself forced to the conclusion 

 that the so-called jjlants could no longer be properly regarded as such, 

 but that they were members of the animal kingdom, and he conse- 

 quently preferred to change the name of Myxomycetes to Mycetozoa, 

 and thus indicate by the name the supposed facts in the case. The 

 observations of De Barry were essentially confirmed in 1862 by L. 

 Cienkowski, and still further extended by himself in 1864 in a special 

 monograph of the Mycetozoa. 



Nevertheless, botanists have been loath to give np the gtoup, and 

 while some have retained it among plants rather for the sake of con- 

 venience than conviction as to the plant-like nature of its species, 

 others have bitterly resented the attempt to transfer the type from the 

 vegetable to the animal kingdom. Whether such forms are animals or 

 plants has been a subject of controversy lately between Mr. Saville 

 Kent, a well-known student of the infusoria, and Dr. M. C. Cooke, an 

 enthusiastic cryptogamist. Mr. Kent has presented the argument in 

 favor of the animal nature of the group, and Mr. Cooke, while not 

 denying the facts epitomized, denies that they i)rove the organisms so 

 distinguished to be animals, and still claims that they are of a " truly 

 vegetable nature." Another eminent cryjitogamist, M. Yan Tieghem 

 (Bull. Soc. Bot. France, v. 27, jip. 317-322) also considers the problem- 

 atic organisms to be ^dants, and even that the forms brought together 

 as Myxomycetes exhibit so much heterogeneity that they cannot be 

 naturally' associated together, but should be disj)ersed and correlated 

 with various diverse fungi, which they most resemble in what he calls 

 their fructification. It may be added, in this connection, that Van 

 Tieghem divides the Myxomycetes, as he naturally calls them, into 

 three groups : (1) those with the Plasmodium fused and endosporous — 

 Myxomycetes retstricted ; (2) those with the plasmodium also fused, but 

 exosporous — Ceratiacew; and (3) those with the plasmoditim aggro- 

 gated — Acrasiacece. 



Some eminent zoologists {e. g., Dr. Clans) also are disposed to or 

 actually do reinidiate the organisms in question as animals. 



When such authorities ditfer we will not presume to ofler an opinion. 



