4 o 



THE MYCETOZOA 



Euplasmodida, a view which is by no means shared by the writer of this 

 article. The presence of chlorophyll bodies and the stiff little-branched 

 character of the pseudopodia are altogether foreign to the present group, 

 and here again the plasmodial nature of Chlamydomyxa is far from being 

 established. Both these genera are in the present treatise dealt with 

 separately (pp. 274, 280). 



In addition to the remarkable phenomena presented by the 

 plasmodium of the Euplasmodida, the characteristic and unique 

 feature of the Mycetozoa, as a group, is that belonging, as 

 the earlier stages of their life -history show them to do, to the 

 animal stock, and developing their sporophores and sporangia in 

 air, these structures have been differentiated into a series of 

 forms analogous with the sporophores met with among different 

 orders of fungi. So close is the resemblance in many cases, that 

 sporangial forms of each of the three main divisions have been 

 classified among the several orders of fungi : Dictyostelium 

 (Sorophora) among the Mucorinae ; Ceratiomyxa (Exosporeae) with 

 the Basidiomycetes Polyporus and llydnum ; and various members 

 of the Endosporeae with the Gasteromycetes. 



EUPLASMODIDA. 



THE LIFE-CYCLE OF THE ENDOSPOREAE. 

 (a) The Swarm-Cell or Zoospore. 



The spores of the Mycetozoa are produced not in water, as are 

 those of the Monadina (except Bursulla), but in air, and they are 

 able to retain their vitality in the dry state for as many as four 

 years, undergoing no apparent change except a collapse of the 



spore owing to the shrinking of the 

 contents on drying. When carried 

 into water, they rapidly swell and 

 resume their original form, which is, 

 in nearly all species, spherical. As 

 they lie in water one or more contrac- 

 tile vacuoles make their appearance in 

 the protoplasmic contents, and after 

 a period varying- from a few hours 

 FIG. i. to a day or two, the spore wall is rup- 



The hatching of a spore of Fuligo septica. tured, and the Contents slip Ollt and 

 x 1100. a, spore ; 6 and c, contents . . , . , 



emerging and undergoing amoeboid move- lie free in the water - a maSS OI Clear 



- protoplasm, containing the nucleus 



and contractile vacuoles (Fig. 1). 



The first movements in the free state are amoeboid, but an 

 elongated shape is soon assumed ; and a flagellum, protruded ten- 

 tatively at first, becomes established at one end. The organism 



