233 



Address delivered by the E.ev. M. J. Berkeley, President 

 of the Biological Section of the British Association^ at 

 the Meeting held in Norwich, September, 1868. 



Few points are of greater significance than tliose which, 

 touch upon the intimate connection of animal and vegetable 

 life. Fresh matter is constantly turning up, most clearly 

 indicating that there are organisms in the vegetable kingdom 

 ■which cannot be distinguished from animals. The curious 

 observations which showed that the protoplasm of the spores 

 of Botrytis infestans (the potato mould) is at times differen- 

 tiated, and ultimately resolved into active flagelliferous 

 zoospores, quite undistinguishable from certain infusoria, 

 have met their parallel in a memoir lately published by 

 MM. Famintzin and Boranetzky, respecting a similar differ- 

 entiation in the gonidia of lichens belonging to the genera 

 Physcia and Cladonia. It is, however, only certain of the 

 gonidia which are so circumstanced; the contents of others 

 simply divide into motionless globules. 



A still more curious fact, if true, is that described by De 

 Bary, after CienkoAvsky, in the division of fungi known under 

 the name of Myxogastres or false puff-balls. Their spores, 

 when germinating, in certain cases give rise to a body not 

 distinguishable from Amoeba, though in others the more 

 ordinary mode of germination prevails. In the first instance 

 De Bary pronounced these productions to belong to the 

 animal kingdom, so striking was the resemblance ; but in 

 our judgment he exercised a wise discretion in comprising 

 them amongst vegetables in a late volvmie of Hofmeister's 

 ' Handbuch.' 



The point, however, to which I wish to draw your atten- 

 tion, and one of great interest if ultimately confirmed, is that 

 the gelatinous mass produced either indej)endently, or by the 

 blending of these amoeboid bodies, is increased, after the man- 

 ner of true Amoebae, by deriving nourishment from different 

 organisms involved by accident from the extension of the 

 pseudopodia. These foreign bodies, according to our author, 

 behave themselves precisely after the same manner as those 

 enclosed accidentally in undoubted animals. If this be true, 

 it shows a still more intimate connection, or even identity of 

 animals and vegetables than any other fact with which I am 

 acquainted. 



You are all doubtless aware of the important part which 

 minute fungi bear in the process of fermentation. A very 



