Some Questions which they Suggest. 77 



myxies seems on the whole rather with animals than 

 plants. 



THEIR RELATIONS IN THE SPORANGIUM STAGE. On the 

 other hand, when we reach the sporangium stage, the 

 absence of motion, the erect form, the stalk, the foot, the 

 spores, all recall some of the Fungi ; the elaters remind 

 us of the Jungermannise. 



The methods of opening the sporangia, sometimes by an 

 indefinite rupture, sometimes by a distinct operculum, 

 recall the distinction between the methods of opening 

 which prevail in the mosses. On the whole, the facies of 

 the sporangium stage is vegetable. 



One other observation which relates to all the stages of 

 development must be made. The two most characteristic 

 of vegetable compounds are probably cellulose and 

 chlorophyll : though neither is found in all plants, nor is 

 absent from some animals. Of chlorophyll we have no 

 trace in the myxies, and of cellulose very little. Nowhere 

 do we find it as the wall of a true and living cell as we do 

 in the most characteristic form of vegetable growth. 



THEIR RELATIONS RECONSIDERED. On the whole it seems 

 impossible to assign these minute organisms with any 

 certainty to the one realm or the other. If, with Haeckel, 

 we were, for purposes of classification, to speak of a new 

 kingdom a buffer state between the animal and vegetable 

 realms, the Regnum protisticum we should no doubt 

 place the myxies there. But, if we retain the two ancient 

 kingdoms only, then it almost seems as if the myxies were 



