HANDBOOK OF CRYPTOGAMIC BOTANY. 281 



point of view and because it is less likely to be confused with 

 "microspore," a mistake often made, as teachers in botany could 

 testify. 



But it is necessary to make a strong protest against another 

 change, evidently of considerable importance in the eyes of the 

 authors, viz., the utter rejection of " spermatozoid" from botanical 

 terminology, and the assigning the syllable " sperm " not to the male 

 factor in impregnation, but to the fertilised female element. The 

 adoption of this suggestion would be a distinctly retrograde step, 

 and would do much to retard that uniformity of terminology in 

 both branches of Biology which is so greatly to be desired. It is 

 suggestive that in the recent edition (1888) of ' Huxley's Biology,' 

 by Howes and Scott, the exactly opposite change is made through- 

 out the botanical portion, " antherozoid " of the early edition being 

 in every case replaced by *' spermatozoid."* By this change the 

 analogy of the reproductive process in the plant and animal divisions 

 of Biology IS at once made considerably clearer, as "spermatozoa" 

 is the almost universally used term in Zoology for the male element 

 in reproduction.! Sachs ('Lectures on the Physiology of Plants,' 

 Eng. Tr., p. 724) advocates the exactly opposite course to that 

 pursued by Messrs. Murray and Bennett. He says: — " It would 

 be the simplest and most accurate plan to denote all male organs 

 spermogonia, and all female organs oogonia." The use of sperma- 

 tozoid — zoon, sperm-cell, or some other compound of sperm, for the 

 male element, is frequent in English text-books of Botany, universal 

 in those which relate to Zoology, so that the application of the 

 syllable ''sperm" in the innovatory fashion of our authors would 

 produce a gratuitous confusion in the subject, and it is earnestly to 

 be hoped that they will think fit to reconsider their determination 

 on this point. The change they recommend certainly cannot be said 

 to supply the basis of "a symmetrical system" of terminology, and 

 instead of "redeeming" the confusion that at present meets the 

 student at the outset of his researches, it would be much more 

 likely to intensify that confusion, and to hide from learners one of 

 the most important lessons they are likely to learn, the substantial 

 identity in plants and animals of many physiological processes, 

 especially those relating to reproduction. 



The question of what the product of sexual fusion is to be called 

 has still to be considered. " Oospore," the term used by the 

 German school and their English followers, is clearly inadmissible 

 when once "spore" has received the strict limitation mentioned 

 above. It has always seemed to me most convenient to speak of 



* See an exhaustive criticism of the ' Handbook ' by the latter of these 

 writers, which has appeared since the present notice was in tyije. 'Nature,' 

 vol. xl., p. 217. 



t Mr. K. J. Harvey Gibson, in an interesting pamphlet on this question 

 (Proc. Biol. Soc, Liverpool, vol. ii.), suggests the further extension of this 

 uniformity of terms by the use of the words " spermarium, sperm, ovarium, 

 ovum," for the male and female organs and their contents, in all cases, in both 

 the Botanical and Zoological divisions of Biology. 



