SLIME FUNGI— MYXOMYCETES 309 



the bacilli. In about two minutes it resumed its former shape 

 and movement, and crept away, carrying off two of the bacilli 

 in vacuoles. 



" These observations seem to confirm the opinion of De Bary 

 that the organisms under consideration should be classed 

 among the animal rather than the vegetable kingdom. When 

 a creeping swarm-cell is watched, with the projecting cilium 

 placed immediately in advance of the nucleus, which never 

 shifts its position, and when we note the manner in which the 

 vibrating extremity of the cilium appeared to detect the 

 presence of the bacilli, before the swarm-cell spread itself over 

 them ; again, when we observe the 

 creeping action suddenly change, 

 and raising itself from the decum- 

 bent attitude, with a few lashing 

 strokes of the cilium the swarm-cell 



releases its foothold and swims Fig. 140.— Cluster of Tvbulma 



away ; and when to these remarkable cyimOrim. 



movements is added the process of ingestion, we cannot but 

 feel the force of the conclusion at which De Bary arrived, if 

 indeed a distinct line of demarcation between the two kingdoms 

 can be said to exist." l 



Nearly all the species in this group are minute, and when 

 not so are composite, several individuals being united in a 

 cluster (Fig. 140). Most of them are more or less gregarious, 

 and sometimes covered with a shiny envelope, of which portions 

 extend to the matrix, and resemble when dry a sort of mem- 

 branaceous thallus. The tendency is certainly towards the 

 globose in form, now and then attenuated into the cylindrical. 

 If we were to attempt a kind of typical description, we should 

 say that they are small globose or pear-shaped bodies, with or 

 without a stem, scarcely exceeding a millimetre in diameter, 

 variable in colour, sometimes shining and sometimes covered 

 with white chalky granules; at first pulpy, then dry and 

 fragile, filled within with a mass of pulverulent spores, often 

 mixed with threads of a capillitium. Into this interior the 

 stem is continued as a columella, which is connected with the 



1 " Notes on Chondrioderma difforme," etc., by A. Lister, in Annals of 

 Botany, iv. (May 1890), p. 281. 



