Some Questions which they Suggest. 



37 



Of these classes, it may at once be observed that the 

 endosporous Myxomycetes are by far the largest, and that 

 the species at present known of the other groups are very 

 few in number, and, accordingly, in the sketch which we 

 have given of the life-history of a myxie we have dealt only 

 with the changes in an endosporous myxie. 



It now becomes needful to call attention to the points in 

 which the smaller classes differ from the dominant one. 



In the ordinary myxie, as we have seen, the swarm 

 spores effect a true fusion and build up one mass of proto- 

 plasm. In the Acrasiese, on the contrary, the swarm 



spores do not fuse 



or coalesce together, 

 but only aggregate 

 together, retaining a 

 power of separating 

 from and moving on 

 one another. This is 

 the first and broadest 

 division of the group 

 of organisms. - ^,.^ 



The next character- 

 istic which has been 

 used for the classifica- 

 tion of the group is the 

 position of the spores 

 in the organism. Hitherto we have only mentioned 

 spores as contained within the sporangium ; but there 

 are one or perhaps two species very different in many 





Fi<J. 6. Arcyria punicea (cap = capil- 

 litium ; c = cup ; p = pedicel) x about 

 ten diameters. 



