Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/753

Rh of resisting the entrance of coloring matter into its substance. As many here present are aware, microscopists are in the habit of using in their investigations various coloring matters, such as solutions of carmine. These act differently on the different tissues, staining some, for example, more deeply than others, and thus enabling the histologist to detect certain elements of structure, which would otherwise remain unknown. Now, if a solution of carmine be brought into contact with living protoplasm, this will remain, so long as it continues alive, unaffected by the coloring matter. But if the protoplasm be killed, the carmine will at once pervade its whole substance, and stain it throughout with a color more intense than even that of the coloring solution itself.

But no more illustrative example can be offered of the properties of protoplasm as living matter, independently of any part it may take in organization, than that presented by the Myxomycetæ.

The Myxomycetæ constitute a group of remarkable organisms, which, from their comparatively large size and their consisting, during a great part of their lives, of naked protoplasm, have afforded a fine field for research, and have become one of the chief sources from which our knowledge of the nature and phenomena of protoplasm has been derived.

They have generally been associated by botanists with the fungi, but though their affinities with these are perhaps closer than with any other plants, they differ from them in so many points, especially in their development, as to render this association untenable. They are found in moist situations, growing on old tan or on moss, or decaying leaves or rotten wood, over which they spread in the form of a network of naked protoplasmic filaments, of a soft, creamy consistence, and usually of a yellowish color.

Under the microscope the filaments of the network exhibit active spontaneous movements, which, in the larger branches, are visible under an ordinary lens, or even by the naked eye. A succession of undulations may then be noticed passing along the course of the threads. Under higher magnifying powers a constant movement of granules may be seen flowing along the threads, and streaming from branch to branch of this wonderful network. Here and there offshoots of the protoplasm are projected, and again withdrawn in the manner of the pseudopodia of an Amœba, while the whole organism may be occasionally seen to abandon the support over which it had grown, and to creep over neighboring surfaces, thus far resembling in all respects a colossal ramified Amœba. It is also curiously sensitive to light, and may be sometimes found to have retreated during the day to the dark side of the leaves, or into the recesses of the tan over which it had been growing, and again to creep out on the approach of night.

After a time there arise from the surface of this protoplasmic net oval capsules or spore-cases, in which are contained the spores or