APRIL 12, 1912] 
vanities on the assumption that the present 
world is all?” (429). 
Despite my radical dissent from Dr. Ward’s 
pluralism, with its concessions to what I am 
bound to call irrationalism, his book has made 
a profound impression upon me. It is a work 
which any man may well peruse as a discipline 
in self-education, and this without reference 
to the field of his specialty. Assuredly, we 
have to thank Dr. Ward for a human, and 
therefore significant—often a wise—pronounce- 
ment. A main portion of the charm of the 
work is traceable to the skill shown by the 
author in conferring distinction upon the 
commonest things. 
R. M. Wrentey 
ANN ARBOR 
BOTANICAL NOTES 
THE PASSING OF THE SLIME MOULDS 
De Bary, whose keen botanical perception 
has perhaps never been equalled, long ago dis- 
carded the name Myxomycetes for the slime 
moulds, significantly applying to them the 
name Mycetozoa, and then placed them out- 
side the limits of the vegetable kingdom, 
greatly to the consternation and indignation 
of many fungologists of the old school. The 
latter, relying upon external characters, as- 
sociated them for a long time with the puff- 
balls among the higher fungi, implying a re- 
lationship whose impossibility is now manifest 
to the merest tyro in botany. Latterly they 
have been pushed down into the neighborhood 
of the schizophytes (blue-green alge, and the 
bacteria), as is done by Engler in his “ Sylla- 
bus,” but he takes particular pains to disclaim 
any relationship with the true fungi (Humy- 
cetes), or higher plants. 
More than thirty years ago the writer of 
this note said of them “they have no struc- 
tural affinities with plants higher than they 
are, nor with any lower; they stand alone, and 
appear to belong to a different genetic line” 
(“ Botany,” p. 207), although in deference to 
the views as to their nature then prevalent 
they were still included among plants. By 
speaking of them as “a group of remarkable 
organisms which differ in many respects from 
SCIENCE 
589 
all other vegetable structures,” and by com- 
paring them to certain Protozoa the attempt 
was made to educate the reader to regard them 
as aliens instead of true plants. In later pub- 
lications they have been omitted as no longer 
necessary to be spoken of in a systematic ar- 
rangement of plants. 
The final disappearance of these animals 
from the domain of botany seems now immi- 
nent, for in the new (eleventh) edition of the 
Encyclopaedia Britannica they are treated 
under De Bary’s name of Mycetozoa, with 
the introductory defining phrase “in zoology, 
a group of organisms reproducing themselves 
by spores.” The whole treatment, which is by 
J. J. Lister, is zoological, and no doubt is ex- 
pressed as to their animal nature. We may 
now look for an approaching general revision 
of our botanical text-books so as to omit the 
Mycetozoa, greatly to the relief of the scien- 
tific botanists who have long been sorely 
puzzled to find a proper niche in which to fit 
them in the vegetable kingdom. 
It will now be necessary for the zoologists 
to prepare to take charge of the considerable 
number of Mycetozoa to which they fall heir. 
It behooves the botanists to generously re- 
move the specimens of these organisms from 
the pigeon-holes of their herbaria, and turn 
them over to the zoologists to be placed by 
them on the museum shelves devoted to the 
Sarcodinia among the Protozoa. And further 
it will become necessary for the librarians to 
revise their system of classifying botanical 
and zoological books so as to make the proper 
transfers upon their shelves and in their card 
catalogues. When all this is done the botan- 
ists may feel that they are well rid of these 
animals that have too long roamed quite 
too freely in the botanical garden. The 
“slime moulds” will have passed from the 
domain of botany, and there will remain in 
their stead only the “fungus animals.” 
THE SECRET OF THE BLUEBERRIES 
Ir to make “two blades of grass grow where 
but one grew before” has been regarded as a 
laudable undertaking, what shall we say of the 
successful effort to make blueberries grow 
