No. 50.] 
[December, 1880. 
A QUARTERLY RECORD OF CRYPTOGAMIC BOTANY 
AND ITS LITERATURE. 
ANIMAL NATURE ” OF MYXOMYCETES. 
In a work recently published on the Infusoria, by Mr. Saville 
Kent, the exploded doctrine of the animal nature of Myxomycetes 
is revived in the following words — “ Formerly, and by some even 
yet regarded as a low order of fungi, or as a special group of 
organisms intermediate between animals and plants, which exhibit 
at one epoch of their life all the vital characteristics of the former, 
and at another those of the latter kingdom, their admission into 
the Protozoic galaxy or system will no doubt encounter objection. 
The evidence most recently and independently eliminated by L. 
Cienkowski and Dr. A. de Bary concerning the structure and life 
history of this most remarkable group, establishes, however, 
beyond question their purely animal nature.” After recapitulat- 
ing, in a summary compiled from De Bary's work, the phases of 
the life history oii\iQ Myxomycetes, the author proceeds to identify 
them with the sponges. “ In both the formation of the gigantic 
compound plasmodium, and in the development therefrom of the 
characteristic sporangia, these Myxomycetes exhibit certain phe- 
nomena singularly suggestive of a more or less remote affinity with 
the sponges. In these latter also the initial term takes the form 
of spore-developed uniflagellate monads, which uniting in social 
colonics, form a gelatinous mass, corresponding closely with the 
plasmodial element of the former group. In the fine horny net- 
work, usually contained with the spores within the sporangium 
developed by the mature plasmodium, a substance is produced 
singularly resembling the fine horn-like elements or keratose fibre 
of certain sponges, while, what is still more remarkable, in certain 
forms spicule-like bodies, composed of carbonate of lime, are also 
developed within the substance of the walls of the sporangium, or 
so called ‘peridium,’ that accord substantially in outline with the 
stellate siliceous spicula of the Tethyidce, and other familiar sponge 
groups. In illustration of the apparent close approximation of the 
Mycetozoa to the spongida and other flagellate Protozoa, as here 
presumed, the lower half of Plate xi. of this volume, with its 
accompanying descriptions, has been devoted to a reproduction of 
some of the more characteristic figures given by De Bary and 
4 
