34 PATRICK GEDDES. 



feet in view of the wide prevalence of the latter and somewhat 

 overstrained theory. 



But the principal interest of these observations lies in the fact 

 that here we have living protoplasm assuming the most pro- 

 tean forms, despite the cellulose wall ; so much so, that the plate 

 might seem rather to include a whole series of organisms than 

 to be devoted to the resting state of a single species. Without 

 insisting on the consideration that such extreme variability leads 

 one to look with greatly increased suspicion upon the type- 

 figures of many genera and species of amoeboid organisms, it 

 is worthy of notice that here we have represented by the same 

 organism, if not all the modes of cell multiplication with 

 which we are acquainted, at any rate processes which closely 

 resemble these, and which assist us in imagining how they have 

 arisen. Thus, figs. 4, 5, and 7 closely simulate the ordinary 

 process of transverse division ; figs. 1 and 8 show us gemma- 

 tion ; while fig. 14 and its neighbours, are cases, apparently, at 

 least, akin to those of free cell formation; while figs. 10 and 17 

 indicate the probable existence of rejuvenescence. We have, 

 in short, here an organism even better adapted than the Amceba 

 to serve as a type of the most undifferentiated cell ; its cellulose 

 wall keeps a permanent record of every change, its variability 

 is so great that one can feel a sort of personal interest in drawing 

 every specimen, and can recognise it again among a thousand, 

 while its extreme plasticity and sensitiveness to every change in 

 the environment suggest that by changing the plant upon which 

 it lives, it would be easy to impress upon it other forms, to run 

 it into different moulds. 



What are the affinities, and what should be the systematic 

 position of so protean an organism ? Mr. Archer's reference to 

 the Labyrlnilmlidea can scarcely suffice us, even if a question did 

 not immediately arise as to their position and affinities. Its 

 semi-amoeboid character in the resting stage, and its exalted 

 amoeboid activity when motile, might tempt one rather to refer 

 it to the Thalamopliora. Its cellulose wall, its red, green, and 

 yellow colouring matter makes it seem rather referable to the 

 Algse, a view greatly strengthened by the existence of a Pro- 

 tococcus stage, while, as my friend Mr. Macfarlane suggests, it 

 would thus take the place amotig the lower Algse which the 

 Myxomycetes do among the lower fungi. On the whole I am 

 inclined to regard it as a degenerate form from the Palmella- 

 ceous Algffi, but one sufficiently aberrant to take place alone, 

 and form the type of a new order, the Chlamydomyxida. In 

 any case, it is almost an ideal " Protist,'^ and cannot be dis- 

 tinctly appropriated by either botanist or zoologist without a 

 certain violence to the other. 



