78 The Mycetozoa^ and 



a vagrant tribe that wander sometimes on the one side, 

 and sometimes on the other side of the border line 

 like nomada wandering across the frontier of two settled 

 and adjoining States, to neither of which they belong. 

 They would seem to begin life as animals and end it as 

 vegetables a life-history not without some sad analogies 

 in human experience. 



The absence of a satisfactory position for the myxies in 

 the great network of organized beings leads one to think 

 of them as a group which probably from very remote 

 antiquity has stood aside from the great currents of 

 evolution, whether in the animal or the vegetable world. 



DISTRIBUTION. The species at present known of myxies 

 are not very numerous. Mr. Lister figures less than two 

 hundred in his monograph ; De Bary speaks of them as 

 numbering nearly three hundred. No doubt many species 

 remain to be discovered. 



Of the distribution of the myxies in time, nothing is 

 known. The protoplasm is too delicate to leave its 

 memorial in the rocks, and its lime particles are so small 

 and so indistinguishable that it is no wonder that they 

 have never been traced. 



In space, the group, and many individual members of it, 

 are "cosmopolitan. A large number of the species are, says 

 Mr. Lister, " found with identically the same characters 

 in Europe, India, the Cape of Good Hope, Australia, and 

 North and South America." What is implied in the 

 identity of a species in Australia and England ? Does it 

 mean that the species have passed the great intervening 



