108 The Botanical Gazette. [Apri 
Suggestions on the classification of Metaphyta. 
CONWAY MACMILLAN. 
The sciences of botany and zoédlogy are not yet sufficiently 
advanced, it may be, tor the proposal of that system of clas- 
sification which, at once comprehensive and_ natural, shall 
bind together all our ontogenetic and phylogenetic discoveries 
and generalizations into a harmonious and enduring structure 
The season of patient toil in the acquisition of new facts im 
the departments of comparative morphology and embryology 
is not yet past; and to both the zodlogist and the botanist 
there is still a vast terra-incognita presenting its untried paths 
for the work of discovery and cartography. To indicate what 
seems to be a possibly fruitful line of investigation—or rather 
to suggest the continued investigation of an already indicated 
and partially explored region, from a somewhat different point 
of view than the ordinary one—is the object of this paper. 
The bald statement that there exists a great group of living 
creatures with which students of biology have long bee™ 
familiar, but of which there is as yet no classification, 0 5)* 
tema, no Tournefort or Linnaeus, and no compendium se 
monograph of any sort, borders closely on the sensational. 
From a certain point of view this is, however, a fair statement 
_ and one that can be defended. The groups to which reference 
is made have been studied since the time of Camerarius 
Properly understood since the days of Hofmeister. ie 
presence as organisms is nevertheless owing to the persistent® 
of ancient habits of thought, largely overlooked by the § f 
dents of to-day. The accepted classification of the plan 
kingdom into Protophyta and Metaphyta buries every vestigt 
of the group, and it is only by modifying that classification 
ganisms which can not be safel d either with 
; : y grouped eitner w! 
or with the animals. These are the Protista of Hackel ‘ 
t 
