ARCHER, ON STEPHANOSPHARA PLUVIALIS. 189 
T should venture to exclude any of the conditions forming 
the subject of Carter’s observations on Characez from the 
same category as that of Stephanosphera, Volvox, Rhizidium, 
&e., forming the subject of this paper; that is, I should 
imagine, they do not form an example of an amceboid condi- 
tion of vegetable protoplasm, but are actually foreign para- 
sitic growths, with the exception possibly (as above indicated) 
of the zoospores of the Chytridium. 
I have mentioned the case of the zoospores of Rhizidium 
as the only other instance, besides Dr. Hicks’, I have found 
recorded of a strictly amoeboid condition of an undoubted 
vegetable cell.* For, as by so experienced and masterly an 
observer as Professor de Bary the hitherto so-called Myxo- 
gastric Fungi have been accounted as belonging to the 
animal kingdom, the amceboid condition of these organisms 
cannot be quoted as occurring in “ undoubted” plants ;+ 
but that that group of organisms, while their reproduction 
appears to be vegetable, should present an intervening, though 
more prolonged amceba-like condition, seems, I should ven- 
ture to suppose, no more to demonstrate their animal nature 
than do the temporary amceboid states of Stephanosphera, 
of Volvox, of the Moss, or of Rhizidium, prove that they 
belong to the animal kingdom, seeing, as is well known, that 
all their analogies and affinities are with plants, and their 
true position cannot for a moment be doubted. Professor de 
Bary, while admitting the force of certain analogies presented 
by unquestionable plants, contends that in his ‘‘ Mycetozoa” 
(Myxogastres) the free power of motion occurs, with a 
greater intensity, and persists through a greater section of 
their developmental processes, than is at all approached by 
any plant.{ But at least the free power of motion, exter- 
nally of the enveloping protoplasmic mass, and internally of 
the thereby induced flowing granular contents, and the con- 
sequently reptantly locomotive power of the whole, could not 
occur in greater intensity nor more energetically im any 
“ Mycetozoon,” nor in any true “ Amba,” than in the thus 
remarkably temporarily modified primordial cells of Stephano- 
sphera. Had, therefore, de Bary been aware of this con- 
dition of the latter, or those of Volvox and the Moss, put 
forward by Hicks, I venture to think that, perhaps, he would 
not have insisted so strongly on the extreme view he has 
* See, however, the previous foot-note alluding to de Bary and Woronin’s 
paper on “ Synchytrium,” lately published, lL. c. 
+ De Bary, “ Die Mycetozoen,” in Siebold and Kolliker’s ‘ Zeitschrift fir 
wissenschaftliche Zoologie,’ Band x, p. 88. 
{ Loc. cit., p. 166. 
