56 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. 915 



No greater praise can be accorded to the 

 publication as a whole than that it is an 

 epochal contribution to the library of the high- 

 sohool teacher. Julius Sachs 



A Monograph of the Mycetozoa: A descriptive 

 catalogue of the species in the Herbarium 

 of the British Museum. By Arthur 

 Lister, F.E.S., F.L.S. Second edition, re- 

 vised by GuLiELMA Lister, F.L.S. With 

 two hundred and one plates and fifty-six 

 wood cuts. London, printed by order of the 

 Trustees of the British Museum. 1911. 

 Octavo, 302 pp. 



It marked an epoch in the study of these 

 organisms when in 1894 Arthur Lister 

 brought out an exhaustive monograph of the 

 Mycetozoa based on the specimens in the Brit- 

 ish Museum. It was illustrated with seventy- 

 eight plates of much more than usual merit, 

 which proved invaluable aids to the student, 

 as did also the illustrated keys to the genera 

 which accompanied the " orders." Now, 

 seventeen years later, and nearly four years 

 after the author's death, a second edition is 

 brought out by his daughter, who had aided 

 him in the preparation of the first edition, as 

 well as in the work undertaken in anticipation 

 of the present edition. The result is a mod- 

 ernized and much augmented monograph, 

 following, however, in the main the treatment 

 given in the earlier volume. Some of the 

 genera have been changed in their positions 

 in the group, the most notable change of this 

 kind being that by which Lycogola is moved 

 from the Calonemineffl (with capillitium) to 

 the Anemineas (without true capillitium). In 

 the new book families are still called " orders," 

 in which one may discern the influence of the 

 botanical nomenclature of the immediate 

 English past. This appearance of botanical 

 antiquity is shown also in the use of " Cohort " 

 and " Sub-Cohort." 



Comparing the two editions, one finds forty- 

 nine genera in the new edition as against 

 forty-three in the old, and two hundred and 

 forty-six species in the new, to one hundred 

 and seventy-six in the old. These numerical 

 changes are mainly due to the very consider- 



able increase of available material for study 

 resulting from the widespread interest aroused 

 by the publication of the first edition. Other 

 changes which will be noted by the student of 

 these organisms result in part from a better 

 knowledge of their structure, and somewhat 

 to the application of the laws of botanical 

 nomenclature formulated in Vienna and 

 Brussels, by which many names have been 

 changed. For aid in this work cordial credit 

 is given to Professor T. H. Macbride, the well- 

 known American authority on the Mycetozoa. 



Looking over the book, one is struck by the 

 obvious mixing of botanical and zoological 

 ideas. Nowhere in the book are the Mycet- 

 ozoa spoken of as plants; nor on the contrary 

 are they called animals. They are invariably 

 called " organisms." Tet in the introductory 

 chapter in connection with the statement that 

 swarm-cells coalesce to form a Plasmodium 

 we are told that " in consequence of this dis- 

 covery, which indicated a relationship with 

 the lower forms of animal life, DeBary in 

 1858 introduced the name Mycetozoa." Tet 

 the specimens on which the monograph is 

 based are in the Herbarium of the British 

 Museum, while the preface is written by A. B. 

 Rendle, of the Department of Botany, and as 

 has been said above the nomenclature has been 

 revised in accordance with the laws of botan- 

 ical nomenclature. Verily, it is difficult to 

 break the traditions of even scientific men! 

 If we were to take up the study of the 

 Mycetozoa to-day for the first time it is cer- 

 tain that we should all agree that they are 

 animals, but because they were thought to be 

 plants for so long, it is difficult to transfer 

 them from the plant kingdom to the animal. 



And it must be confessed that the beauty of 

 the spore-stage is so great that we can not 

 blame the botanists for their unwillingness to 

 let these pretty things escape from the botan- 

 ical domain. There is also much the same 

 feeling now among the myxomycologists that 

 there was among the lichenologists thirty 

 years ago when DeBarry and Schwendener 

 and other botanical insurgents were saying 

 that the lichens were fungi. And yet to-day 

 the fungus nature of the lichens is conceded 



