ACRASIEAE 159 



Notes on some affinities of Mycetozoa 



Watching living zoospores of any Mycetozoon under the 

 microscope we see them incept and digest bacteria, and we 

 see them divide, so that it would be easy to think that we 

 had before us a simple flagellate or monad. 



Again we see a mycetozoan plasmodium incept whole 

 colonies of bacteria or other solids by its pseudopodia, and 

 digest them in vacuoles, so that we could well believe it to 

 be a rhizopod protozoon. 



Examining the stages of spore-formation we cannot fail 

 to be reminded of the same process in a puff-ball, a synch y- 

 trian, or a sporozoon. 



Mycetozoa have affinities with the vegetable protists 

 especially Chytridiineae on the one hand, and with the 

 animal monads, rhizopods, and sporozoa on the other hand. 



The likeness that is seen on comparing the texture of 

 the protoplasm of chytridians with that of Mycetozoa has 

 often been remarked upon. The protoplasm of the thistle- 

 Synchytrium is very like that of many mycetozoan structures. 

 We may compare the sexual stages of Synchytrium to the 

 mycetozoan plasmodium, botli result from isogamy ; the 

 subsequent numerical increase in the synchytrian is by 

 generative chromidia ; in the mycetozoan by mitotic nuclear 

 divisions, such chromidial processes as I have observed 

 being chiefly for the production of capillitium elements. 



The nucleus of Polyphagus euglenae is more like the 



