742 
to speedy disappearance if not already gone. 
But such would be a serious error: the case is 
not so bad as that. These beautiful organ- 
isms were never more abundant than, nor did 
they ever receive such intelligent attention as, 
at the present moment. If the reader will 
leave the title-page and turn to the article itself 
he may, by reading a sentence or two, perhaps 
conclude that the “passing” in question is 
limited to the transit of thoughts about slime- 
moulds in the mind of our honored colleague 
during some thirty years. This is of course a 
matter of interest. We are glad to learn 
Professor Bessey’s view even if inconstant, 
concerning any topic whatsoever. But we 
are still too hasty of conclusion. The “ pass- 
ing” intended is something different yet. 
Read to its conclusion the article in question 
would have us know that, in the judgment of 
the author, slime-moulds have finally passed 
from botany to zoology, have ceased to be 
plants (?) and have become animals—good 
riddance to them! Now in so much as our col- 
league esteemed does not at all trouble him- 
self to define for us a plant or even an animal, 
the reader is left wondering; there rises the 
unbidden query: if we do not know what they 
are, why not let them alone, at least until we 
do know something definitive? 
It appears, however, from the article, that 
DeBary, some half century ago, concluded the 
slime-moulds were not plants. It appears 
further that nothing has been added to De- 
Bary’s argument until the recent appearance 
in the Encyclopedia Britannica of an article 
on the Mycetozoa, where these are set forth as 
animals for the mere reason that the author 
of the contribution so esteems them. Pro- 
fessor Bessey agrees. The whole thing is a 
matter of opinion; each of us, so far as stated 
reasons go, may think as he will;—and there 
you are! 
But since the encyclopedia article has been 
forsooth the cause provocative in the present 
instance, it may be worth our while to note 
for a moment the inspiration of that particu- 
lar essay, that we may better realize the full 
weight attaching to the opinion so consoling 
to our Nebraska author. 
SCIENCE 
[N.S. Vou. XXXV. No. 906 
The writer of the 11th-edition article bears 
a distinguished name. He is a zoologist, a 
collaborator of Professor E. R. Lankester for 
whose “ Treatise on Zoology,” now appearing, 
the younger man wrote a chapter on the 
Mycetozoa. For the “passing of the slime 
moulds” so far, therefore, we are indebted to 
the English professor, and it is worth while 
reading the introduction to what is to be his. 
masterpiece, no doubt, to his “ Treatise,” in 
order to completer information at first hand. 
This introduction to have raison d’étre at 
all must evidently show something new. It is. 
fair to state that the only novelty discover- 
able, aside from a multitude of unnecessary 
and hybrid terms, consists in the amount of 
botany offered, both in the introduction and in 
volume one. In the introduction the inde- 
pendent life of the green plant is emphasized 
at length, as matter heretofore strange to the 
zoological reader. The “subtle process” by 
which green plants take up N in the form of 
ammonia will come as information to botan- 
ists as well; while the statement that the ani- 
mal depends for food upon “ hydrocarbons ” 
ought to be news even to zoologists. 
That the earliest plants are to be traced to 
flagellate colony-building protozoa, similar to 
the Volvocinee—here reckoned animals, of 
course—is also a contribution to botany de- 
serving grateful recognition. But it is ad- 
mitted that certain organisms “devoid” of 
chlorophyl are plants. Here belong “fungi, 
bacteria and a few others.” 
Autonomous fungi and the saprophytes depend 
for their food on the products supplied to them 
by the chlorophyl-holding cells of green plants. 
Finally, the summary of zoological wisdom 
in this remarkable discussion appears in the 
following elegant sentence: 
The colorless or greenless plants are descended 
from green chlorophylligerous ancestors: mouth- 
less, gutless animals are descended from mouth- 
bearing, gut-hollow animals. 
Now as above stated, the encyclopedia 
man prepared a chapter on Mycetozoa to fol- 
low in Vol. I. this erudite introduction. The 
slime-moulds are protozoa and come in for the 
present, until better accommodations are at 
