964 The American Naturalist. [October, 
walls of grasses and Equiseti there is often a great amount of 
silica, in certain seaweeds (Corallina) much lime, in tunicates 
so much cellulose that it sometimes amounts to one-fourth of 
the dry weight,” and yet, in the case of the plants named, the 
original and fundamental substance of the wall is cellulose, 
and in the animals proteid. A small amount of nitrogen has 
recently been found by Winterstein"” associated with the cellu- 
lose of fungi, but in what form has not yet been determined. 
Other instances of a similar nature might be cited. 
It may be well to say that by cellulose is meant both pri- 
mary and compound celluloses and their various modifications, 
all of which are carbohydrates, and by proteid is meant the 
nitrogenous, non-protoplasmic substance of walls, no formula 
for which is known, but which Cross and Bevan” suggest 
“may prove to be of similar carbon configuration to that of 
cellulose.” 
There are some organisms which, in their vegetative state, 
consist of so-called naked protoplasm, of which the most con- 
spicuous and well-known examples are the Myxogastres, 
Many species of these fungus-animals (Pilzthiere), however, are 
known to possess a distinct proteid envelop about the plas- 
modium” which, by its chemical reaction, is shown to be non- 
protoplasmic, and it may be inferred that careful examination 
will find it present in most of the species, and that it can be 
considered as potential or undeveloped in the others, They 
are, therefore, distinctly animal in their fundamental character- 
istic. Although usually treated in botanical text-books and 
studied by botanists, they were long since shown by DeBary" 
to have more points of agreement with animals than with 
plants, and he believed them to be “outside the limits of the 
vegetable kingdom.” This separation by DeBary was made 
Schmidt, Zur vergleichenden Physiologie der wirbellosen Thiere. Ann. d. 
Chem., liv, 1845, p. 318 ; Schacht, Miiller’s Archiv, 1851, p. 185; Schäfer, Ueber 
Thiercellulose, Ann. d. Chem., clx, 187 1, p. 312, 
^ Ber. d. d. chem. Ges., xxviii, (1895) p. 167. 
12 Cellulose, 1895, p. 88. 
13 DeBary, Morphology and biology of the fungi, mycetozoa and bacteria, p. 
496. 
4 Die Mycetozoen, ed. 2, Leipzig, 1864; 1. c., p. 444. 
