January 2, 1899.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



LUSTRAl^ED mSiI 



iTERATM. 



Founded by RICHARD A. PROCTOR. 



LONDON: JANVAEY 2, 1899. 



CONTENTS. 



The Mycetozoa, and some Questions which they 

 Suggest. By the Right Hou. Sir Edwaed Jet, d.c.l., 

 IL.D., F.K.S., and AaNEa Fet (lUmtrated) 



Ozone and its Uses 



Two IVlonths on the Guadalquiver,— I. The River. By 



Habet p. Witheebt {Illustrated) 



Witts Planet DQ 



Considerations on the Planet Saturn. By E. M. 



Antoniadi (Illustrated and Plate) 



Science Notes ... ... 



British Ornithological Notes. Conducted by Habet F. 



WlTHEEBY, P.Z.S.; M.B.O.U. (Ilht.ltrafed) 



Notices of Books 



Shoet Notices ... 



Books Eeceiyed 



Letters : C. E. Martin : E. de Beattbepaieb Lautagnt, s. j. ; 

 David Flaneet; William &ODDEN; A. C. 



The Ovipositor of a Beetle (Baptolinus alfernans) and 

 the Teeth of^ the Dung Fly. By Waltee Wesche 

 (Illustrated) 



Electricity as an Exact Science. By Howaed B. Little 

 Notes on Comets and Meteors. By W. F. Dennino, 



T.E.A.S 



Microscopy. By John H. Cooke, f.l.s., f.o.s. 



The Face of the Sky for January. By A. Fowlee, 



P.E.A.S. ,,. 



Chess Column. By C. D. Locock, b.a. 





 f) 



9 

 12 



14 

 14 

 15 

 16 



16 



18 

 19 



22 

 22 



2.3 

 23 



THE MYCETOZOA, AND SOME QUESTIONS 

 WHICH THEY SUGGEST.-I. 



By the Right Hon. Sir Edward Fry, d.c.l., ll.d., k.k.s., 

 and Agnes Fry. 



WE are desirous to make known some small 

 friends of ours to those who are hitherto 

 unacquainted with them ; but we are em- 

 barrassed as to how to introduce them — by 

 what name to present them. It is true that 

 they bear several names derived from the Greek language, 

 Mycetozoa, Myxomycetes, Myxogastres, Myxothallophyta, 

 but these are not familiar words. In German these 

 organisms bear a name which has been translated into 

 English, but it is so repulsive that we would willingly 

 suppress it if we could, just as one would not like to 

 introduce a charming girl to strangers by some name of a 

 distinctly disagreeable suggestion : — 



" A name ? if the party bad a voice, 

 What mortal would be a Bugg by choice ? 

 As a Hogg, a Grubb, or a Chubb rejoice ? " 



And so what beautiful little thing would, if it had a 

 voice, be introduced as a "slime fungus" ? and yet this 



is the only English name of the organisms in question. 

 Some intimates of these Ul-named beings try to get over 

 the difficulty by inventing pet names, and call them 

 " myxos," or " myxies," and, on the whole, we incline to 

 adopt the latter word. It is short, and it rhymes with 

 pixies. 



But what are these myxies ? someone will be impatient 

 to say. Are they fungi ? No. Are they mosses ? No. 

 Are they ferns ? No. Are they lichens ? No. At any 

 rate, plants ? That is doubtful. Then surely they are 

 animals ? We do not know. They are living things — 

 and beyond that we will not go for the present. 



There is another difficulty in the way of presenting 

 these organisms to the novice : that their forms and 

 structure are so far unlike those of plants or animals with 

 which every one is familiar that we cannot use very well- 

 known terms in describing them, and we shall have to ask 

 permission to employ some special terms, when common 

 ones fail. But we shall endeavour to be as clear as we 

 can, and to readers who will give us their attention we 

 believe that we shall overcome these obstacles, and we 

 believe, too, that a little difficulty in following the exposi- 

 tion will be more than repaid by the interest of the subject. 

 It appears to us that many most interesting biological 

 problems are presented in very simple form by this class 

 of organisms, and we shall not hesitate to refer to these 

 from time to time in the following pages. 



If our reader will turn over the pages and look at the 

 illustrations which follow, he will by his eye get a general 

 notion of the kind of thing about which we are going to 

 talk. 



Life-history. — We propose in the first place to sketch 

 the life-history of one of these organisms as an example of 

 all, and then to retrace our steps and dwell a little more 

 in detail on points of interest which emerge in the con- 

 sideration of the several stages of its existence. 



Fig. 1. — Badhamia vtricnlaris, showing Sporangia. 



If our reader will look at Fig 1., he will see depicted an 

 organism consisting of a number of bodies somewhat like 

 grapes in shape ; he will see that each little berry is 

 attached by a tender stalk to a substance which is a piece 

 of dead wood, and he will notice that these berries are so 

 grouped together as to suggest the notion of a common 

 origin. This little organism is known as Badhamia utricu- 

 irtrfs, the generic name being derived from a Dr. Badham, 



