morphological test of a fungus, then it is plain
that the slime-moulds are not fungi. No myxomycete has hyphae, nor indeed
anything at all of the kind. Nevertheless, there are certain parasitic
fungi, _Chytridiaceae_ for example, whose relationships plainly entitle
them to a place among the hyphate forms that have no hyphae whatever in
the entire round of their life-history. These are, however, exceptional
cases and really do not bear very closely on the question at issue.

Physiologically, the fungi are incapable of independent existence, being
destitute of chlorophyl. In this respect the slime-moulds are like the
fungi; they are nearly all saprophytes and absolutely destitute of
chlorophyl. Unfortunately this physiological character is identically
that one which the fungi share with the whole animal world, so that the
startling inquiry instantly rises, are the slime-moulds plants at all?
Are they not animals? Do not their amoeboid spores and plasmodia ally
them at once to the amoeba and his congeners, to all the monad,
rhizopodal world? This is the position suggested by DeBary in 1858, and
adopted since by many distinguished authorities, among whom may be
mentioned Saville Kent, of England, and Dr. William Zopf, of Germany, in
_Die Pilzthiere_, 1885. Rostafinski was a pupil of DeBary's. However,
his volume on the slime-moulds was written after leaving the laboratory;
and no doubt with the suggestion of his master still before his mind, he
adopts the title Mycetozoa, as indicating a closer relationship with the
animal world, but our leading authority really has little to say in
regard to the matter.[9]

Dr. Schroeter, a recent writer on the subject, after showing the
probable connection between the phycochromaceous Algae and the simplest
colorless forms, namely, the _Schizomycetes_, goes on to remark: "At the
same point where the Schizomycetous series take rise, there begin
certain other lines of development among the most diminutive
protoplasmic masses.... Through the amoebae one of these lines gives
rise on the one hand to rhizopods and sponges in the animal kingdom, on
the other to the _Myxomycetes_ among the fungi." This ranges the
Myxomycetes, in origin at least, near the _Schizomycetes_.

The brilliant studies of Dr. Thaxter, resulting in the discovery and
recognition of a new group, a new order of the schizomycetes, strikingly
confirm the judgment of Schroeter.[10] Here we have forms that strangely
unite char