5 8 The Mycetozoa, and 



selves in our more limited ones, and the matter appears 

 therefore to require further enquiry. 



ACBASIE*:. We have already indicated the existence of 

 a small group of organisms differing from the ordinary 

 myxies in the fact that the swarm-spores, though they 

 gather together and act together, never fuse into a single 

 mass or constitute a true plasmodium. 



Three species have been studied and described with 

 some care, and their history is so curious that we hope 

 our readers will not weary if we dwell upon it a little. 



The swarm spores are like 



those of true myxies, and have 

 the same amoeboid movements, 

 but without the dancing move- 

 ment with flagellffi. These 

 swarm-spores meet and, as if by 

 common consent, set up a centre 



(After Famintziu and they tend, the long arms or 

 Woronin.) 



straggling parts of the original 



gathering coming more and more to the central point. 



The course of growth in Acrasis granulata (one of 

 the organisms in question) has been described by Van 

 Tieghem. When the swarm cells have gathered together, 

 they touch one another, and form a cellular mass. This 

 mass grows upwards in a conical shape. The cells of the 

 axis, somewhat longer than they are broad, assume a 

 cellular membrane, and constitute a foot, buttressed up by 

 other cells. The exterior cells move upwards on this foot, 



