FUNGI. 



355 



his " Manual of Infusoria " and claims 

 the whole series as animals ; while 

 Cooke, as representing the English 

 botanists, says, in the introduction to 

 " Myxomycetes of Great Britain," " It 

 is unnecessary to attempt any contro- 

 version of the proposition once made, 

 but soon ignored, that these organisms 

 are more intimately related to animals 

 than plants."* And Saccardo, in his 

 great work now appearing, " Sylloge 

 Fungorum," enumerates and describes 

 the Myxomycetes with the rest. 



But while systematists thus differ 

 as to the place the slime-molds should 

 have in classification, we need not hesi- 

 tate to enjoy their beautiful forms. 

 They are, whether we know what they 

 are or not. The sidewalk species is 

 very strange, and the transition from 

 slime to dusty spores would be incredi- 

 ble did we not witness it. Stranger 

 still, however, is the case of a species 

 often brought in midsummer from the 

 woods. Here, as the object comes from 

 the forest, is a mass of yellowish slime 

 without apparent structure or parts, 

 " without form or comeliness." We lay 

 it upon the laboratory table, shut it up 

 in a box, if you choose, and a few days 

 later examine to find no end of struct- 

 ure. Every particle appears to have 

 passed into the composition of definite 

 and elegant machinery. A perfect hon- 

 ey-comb now lies upon the bit of rotten 

 wood, the original support, each cell 

 capped with a filmy lid which seems 

 all too fragile, and which, opening here 

 and there, discloses a powdery, fluffy 

 mass within. Brought to the micro- 

 scope, the contents of each cell spread 

 out in fruit, in spores and banded fila- 

 ments, " elaters " called, to whose beauty 

 our drawing (Fig. 5) pays but distant 

 tribute. Golden is the color, sculptured 



* Cooke's " Myxomycetes of Great Britain," introduction, p. iii. 



Fig. 3. 



