TaE MYXOaiYCUTES. 7o 



doubtful forms, in a distinct group, the Protista. In 1S71 appeared 

 C'ooke"s " Hand-book of British Fuui^i," wliich is merely, as far as 

 concerns the larj^er divisions, a reprint of Berkeley's classification, 

 which is itself taken mainly from the great Swedish Botanist, Fries. 

 In 187-J, another Pole, Rostafinski, issued a Monograph of the 

 Mycetozoa, in which he appears, though not very clearly, to incline to 

 the animal side of the controversy. 



In 1875 also the English edition of •' Sachs' Botany"' was published, 

 in which the INIyxomycetes, as they are there called, were placed as a 

 supplement or appendix to the Fungi. In the same year appeared the 

 fourth German edition of Sachs', in which a change was made in the 

 classification. The AlgiE and Fungi are there arranged in two parallel 

 series, distinguished from one another solely in the fact that one series 

 produces chlorophyll and the other not. The Bacteria are placed, as 

 the lowest Fungi, on a level with the unicellular Alga), and next 

 (passing over the small group of Saccharomycetes) we have the 

 Myxomycetes, paralleled in the other colunm by the Volvocineae among 

 the Alga). Professor .Vllman,in his Presidential Address to the British 

 Association in 187U, declares that, " though the affinities of the 

 Myxomycetes with th j Fungi are, perhaps, closer than with any other 

 plants, they differ from them in so many points, especially in their 

 development, as to render this association untenable."* 



Saville Kent, in his " Manual of the Infusoria," and more 

 recently in the " Popular Science Review, " adopts the animal 

 hypothesis, and offers many new facts and parallels from the 

 Animal Kingdom in support of his belief. To this, at present, no reply 

 has been given, except to tell Saville Kent that he " has gone out of 

 the way to meddle with a subject which he does not understand." It 

 is evident that a wider and deeper knowledge of the facts concerning 

 not only the Fungi, but the Protozoa, is needed, before the problem 

 can be completely settled. One writer has even suggested lately 

 " the abolition of the group, and the placing of their principal divisions 

 in the various orders of Fungi to which their fructification presents 

 the closest resemblance."] This method of treating them would be 

 similar to that which has been adopted so successfully by modern 

 cryptogamists with regard to the gi'oup of Mosses, formerly named 

 Phasce£e, though in that case leaf-structure formed the basis of the 

 distribution. 



DKSCIUl'lION OK \ .MVXOJIYL'ETK. 



The following is a brief account of a fully-developed Myxomycete. 

 It consists mainly of a spore-case or sporangium, which assumes one or 

 other of two distinct forms : first, it may be definite in shape, spherical, 

 hemispherical, ovoid, lenticular or remform, stalked or sessile ; or, 

 second, it may be without a very definite outline, forming merely an 

 extended cake-like or reticulated mass, which takes its shape for the 

 most part from the accidents of its position. The sporangia vary in 



•^^ Hritisli .\ssociatioii Kopovt. 1870. p. 1 1. 



\ Van Tioghom, Bull. Koc. Bot l-'niULc, x.xvii.. ]), d-^-^. 



