12 The mycetozoa:
of nuclei in young sporangia, of the remarkable wave of mitotic
division that occasionally sweeps over thousands of nuclei
in the streaming plasmodium—a phenomenon first seen by
himself—all these observations were placed at my father's
service to be incorporated with his account of the life-history.
A small book entitled The Mycetozoa and some Questions
which they Suggest, by Sir Edward Fry and his daughter, Miss
Agnes Fry, published in 1899, gives a delightful introduction
to the study of Mycetozoa. The authors discuss the relation
of the group to other forms of life, and, in describing the ways
of the plasmodium and the formation and structure of sporangia,
call attention to the many far-reaching problems which these
things suggest. A second and enlarged edition appeared in
1915.
The last landmark in this sketch of the Study of Mycetozoa
in Britain that I will allude to is the late Prof. Minchin's summary
of Jahn's recent work, which appears in his Introduction to the
Study of Protozoa. Dr. Jahn, who for many years worked
in the Berlin University, and was a valued and friendly corres-
pondent of my father's, crowned a long series of interesting
observations on the life history of Mycetozoa by discovering
that the swarm-cells which emerge from the spores are to be
regarded as gametes ; that they fuse in pairs ; and that it is
from the zygotes so formed that the young plasmodia arise.
By exhibiting this process of conjugation, the Mycetozoa fall
into line with other Orders of the Protozoa.
The systematic position of the Mycetozoa is a highly-favoured
one. Since the time of De Bary, zoologists have claimed them
as Protozoa, while botanists, realizing more than ever how
arbitrary are the distinctions between the simpler forms of
animal and vegetable life, regard them as a doubtful group
lying on the borderland of the two kingdoms which they should
not neglect. Hence a course of instruction in either branch
of biology includes the study of Mycetozoa.
In bringing this sketch to a close, I realise that there are
many others now living whose work in connection with Mycetozoa
well deserves mention.
History never comes to an end. Other men laboured and
we are entered into their labours. It is our privilege to pass
on the torch that has been handed down to us ; and, in this