NATURE NOTES. 109 
sedentary or burrowing habits, and those other passive 
means of defence which are so generally characteristic of 
adult littoral forms. M. J. NEWBIGIN. 
SomE NovrEes ON THE MyYCETOZOA. 
THE Mycetozoa, from the position they occupy on the 
borderland between the animal and vegetable kingdoms, 
appeal with force to all students of nature—to botanists 
and zoologists alike. Up to the time of De Bary they were 
ranked with the Fungi under the title of Myxomycetes, and 
certainly in their reproductive stage they present a great 
likeness to plants of the nature of Fungi. Sporangium, 
columella, capillitium, spore—names used to describe the 
different parts of the spore-cysts—bear witness to the 
close identity of structure existing between them and the 
Fungi, to similar parts of which the same terms are applied. 
But here the likeness ends. When the life-history is 
studied, it is found that the spore on germinating does not 
give rise to a mycelium as in the Fungi, but to a swarm- 
cell or zoospore, which, after a period of activity—swimming 
about by means of a flagellum—becomes amceboid ; several 
of these amcebulie then fuse to form a wandering plannodium, 
which ultimately gives rise to the spore-cysts containing 
the spores from which the life-cycle again begins. Recog- 
nising the relationship with the lower forms of animal- 
life which this life-history implied, De Bary, in 1858, gave 
the group the name of Mycetozoa, and under that name 
they are now generally known. Professor Ray Lankester 
(Zoological Articles) groups them with the Protozoa. He 
says :—“ Whatever course we take with the Mycetozoa, we 
must take also with the Heliozoa, the Radiolaria, and the 
Reticularia.” On the other hand, Dr Cook, amongst others, 
argues for their inclusion in the Fungi. 
However this may be, these very curious and debatable 
organisms form a well-defined class, and have attained, 
along lines of their own, to a considerable degree of com- 
