and Spontaneous Generation. 159 



limit the extent to wliicli sucli forms may not penetrate into and live 

 passively in tlie protoplasm of both animal and vegetable cells, until 

 a favourable opportunity arrives for their further develoi^ment ? I, of 

 course, include in the amoeboid forms, the Myxogostres, now called by 

 Du Bary " Jlhjxozoa." Just before leaving Bombay, I found the brown 

 stains in some cotton which was submitted to me for microscopical 

 examination, to arise from the development of a mycelium originating 

 in cells or germs of a mycetozoon, which were probably introduced 

 into the cell of the cotton fibre when fresh, and which, on the moisture 

 of the cotton during exposure to the rainy monsoon finding the vitality 

 of its host extinct, naturally appropriated its protoj)lasm, and produced, 

 while growing, the stains mentioned and consequent injury to the 

 staple. 



I am glad that we are at one accord as to the origin of protozoa in 

 the cells of organized beings. 



It appears to me that Dr. Hicks is in the same zone (so to write) of 

 investigation in this respect as I was before I renounced my opinion 

 of the " fancied " transformation of the vegetable protoplasm into 

 amoeboid animalcules. It was only after studying the mycelizoa fungi 

 that I began to see the unlimitable extent to which such beings com- 

 mencing their existence and even feeding themselves up to maturity, 

 might enter into, and develop themselves upon the remains of their 

 dead or dying host. 



The contents of the root-like extremities, filamentous mycelium, 

 and pin-head-like capsules of the Mucoridece may issue, when their 

 cellulose covering is ruptured, in the form of amoeboid cells (that is, 

 of course, as regards the sporidia before they are capsuled), and so creep 

 away. Then the Mucoridce are closely allied to the Myxogostres or 

 Mycetozoa ; and here no doubt the protoplasm of the Mucor-ceW or fila- 

 ment, &c., issues in amoeboid forms from its cellulose investment, which 

 seems to be, as in many other instances, secreted by, and common to, 

 a congeries of amoeboid bodies, thus assuming the specific form of 

 Mucor. 



But there is no " transformation" here of the protoplasm, no perish- 

 ing. The amoeboid cells come forth at once and do not bore holes 

 through the cell-wall as the Mycetozoa family when developed in the 

 vegetable cell. 



Hence, unless the protoplasm issues at once in an amoeboid form, 

 or forms, as a whole, as from the cell of (Edogonium, &c., or in plu- 

 rality, as from the filaments and pin-head-like capsule of immatured 

 sporidia in Mucor, &c., I should still be inclined to view the product 

 as not of the same, but of a diiferent organism. 



No doubt you saw the statement I last made of the probable repro- 

 ductive process by impregnation in the Rhizopoda in the xvth vol. 

 of the ' Annals,' p. 172. 



I found in a pair of Dlfflugia urceolata (Carter) in zygosis, when 

 crushed under the microscope, a number of monad-like monociliated, 

 polymorphic bodies in active movement ; the usual nucleated cells 

 much larger ; and apj^areutly some of the latter which had become 

 polymorphic or amoebiform. 



