series of non-sexual generations is termed schizogony, the series of sexual generations gametogony or sporogony. Schizogony and sporogony usually occur as adaptations to, or at least in relation with, distinct conditions of life. Thus in parasitic forms, as well illustrated by the Coccidia, the organisms multiply by schizogony when overrunning the host, that is to say, when nutriment is abundant; sporogony begins as a preparation for passing into the outer world, in order to infect new hosts. In the Haemosporidia, in which transmission from one vertebrate host to another is effected by means of blood-sucking ectoparasites (Diptera, ticks, leeches, &c.), the schizogony goes on in the vertebrate host, the sporogony in the invertebrate host. In free-living, non-parasitic forms, schizogony may go on under ordinary conditions, while sporogony supervenes as a preparation for a marked change in the life-conditions; for instance, a change of medium, or at the approach of winter. It is interesting to note that, as a general rule, the differentiation of sexual forms seems to be a preliminary to the production of more resistnt forms capable of braving adverse conditions or violent changes in the conditions of life; a phenomenon which is in support of the hypothesis that syngamy has a strengthening effect on the vitality of the species.
Classification of the Protozoa.
Various attempts have been made to separate the Protozoa into two primary subdivisions. E. Ray Lankester divided them into two main groups, the Gymnomyxa, with naked protoplasm and indefinite form, and the Corticata, with the protoplasm limited by a firm membrane, and consequently with a definite body-form. In many of the corticate groups, however, there must be placed amoeboid, non-corticate forms, such as Mastigamoeba amongst the Flagellata, or the malarial parasites amongst the Sporozoa. Hence if Lankester’s classification be used, it must be without a hard and fast verbal definition. F. Doflein, on the other hand, has divided the Protozoa into Plasmodroma, with organs of locomotion derived from protoplasmic processes, i.e. pseudopodia or flagella, and Ciliophora, with locomotion by cilia. It may be doubted, however, if the distinction between flagella and cilia is so fundamental and sharply defined as this mode of classification would imply. W. H. Jackson has proposed to unite the forms bearing flagella and cilia into one section, Plegepoda, and distinguishes two other sections, Rhizopoda ( = Sarcodina) and Endoparasita ( = Sporozoa).
Four main groups of Protozoa, of the rank of classes, are universally recognized, however they may be combined into larger categories; these are the Sarcodina, Mastigophora, Sporozoa and Infusoria.
The Sarcodina are characterized by the body being composed of naked protoplasm, not covered by any limiting cuticle, although in many cases a house or shell is secreted into which the protoplasm can be partly or entirely withdrawn. No special organs of locomotion, either flagella or cilia, are ever present in the adult, and locomotion and capture of food are effected in the manner named amoeboid, by more or less temporary extrusions or outflow of the protoplasm which are termed pseudopodia, as in Amoeba.
The Mastigophora are so named because organs of locomotion are always present in the adult in the form of one or more flagella, each flagellum (Gr. μάςτιξ, whip) a delicate, thread-like extension of the protoplasm, endowed with a special contractility which enables it to perform lashing, whip-like movements. The body protoplasm is sometimes naked, in which case it may be amoeboid, but is more usually limited by a cuticle, varying in thickness in different types.
The Sporozoa, with the exception of a few forms of dubious position, are exclusively internal parasites of Metazoa, absorbing their food from the internal juices and secretions of their hosts, and never exhibiting in their trophic phases any organs of locomotion or for the ingestion and digestion of solid food. The body-protoplasm may be naked and amoeboid or limited by a cuticle. The reproduction is specialized in correlation with the parasitic habit, and results typically in the formation of a number of minute germs or spores, by which the infection of fresh hosts is effected. It must not be supposed, however, that spore-formation is confined to this class of Protozoa.
The Infusoria, a name originally of much wider application, is now restricted to denote those Protozoa in which locomotion or capture of food is effected by means of special organs termed cilia, minute hair-like contractile extensions of the protoplasm differing from flagella not only in their usually smaller size and greater number, but also in the mode of contraction and movement. The cilia may be present throughout life or only in an early stage of the individual. The body is always limited by a cuticle and the nucleus seems to be invariably double, being divided into two parts specialized in function and differing in size, termed respectively macronucleus and micronucleus.
Comparing these four subdivisions with one another, it may be said at once that the Sporozoa and Infusoria are highly specialized classes, each well marked off from the other subdivisions. The Sarcodina and Mastigophora, on the other hand, include the most primitive types of Protozoa and are delimited from one another by a somewhat arbitrary character, the presence or absence of a flagellum in the adult. Thus Mastigamoeba is a form which unites the characters of the Sarcodina and Mastigophora, having an amoeboid body which bears a flagellum, and it is classed among the Mastigophora merely because the flagellum is retained throughout life; if the flagellum were absent in the adult condition it would be placed among the Sarcodina, many of which have flagella in their young stages but lack them when adult. Hence Bütschli considered the Rhizomastigina (i.e. Mastigamoeba and its allies) as the most primitive group of Protozoa, representing the common ancestral form of all the classes; and on this view the flagellated young stages of many Sarcodina would represent recapitulative larval stages.
Bütschli’s theory of Protozoan phylogeny implies that a flagellum is an organ of most primitive nature, possessed perhaps by the earliest forms of life; and it must be remembered that flagella are borne by many Bacteria. On the other hand, one would imagine, from general considerations, that living beings possessing a flagellum would have been preceded in evolution by others that did not bear so definite an organ. The flagellum itself is generally regarded as a vibratile process or extension of the protoplasm, comparable in its nature to a slender pseudopodium endowed with peculiar powers of movement. More knowledge with regard to the nature and formation of the flagellum is needed in order to decide this point, and particularly with regard to the question whether the flagella of Bacteria are of the same nature as those of Protozoa.
It has been much debated whether the earliest forms of life were of the nature of plants or animals. Many authors consider the question settled beyond all debate by a process of trenchant deductive reasoning. It is argued that animals require other organisms for their nutriment, and that plants, that is to say green plants, do not; therefore plants must have preceded animals. On the other hand, the morphologist will urge that green plants derive their peculiar powers of metabolism from the possession of very definite cell-organs, namely chromatophores containing chlorophyll; and will argue that living things without such organs must have preceded in evolution those possessing them. The whole dispute is based on the assumption that plant and animal represent the two fundamental modes of metabolism; whereas the study of the Bacteria shows the possibility of many other modes of life. Many Bacteria exhibit processes of metabolism totally different from those generally laid down in textbooks as characteristic of living matter; some are killed by free oxygen; others can absorb free nitrogen, and various other “abnormal” properties are manifested by them. Hence the primitive organisms may have been neither plant nor animal in their nature, but may have possessed, like the Bacteria at present, many different methods of metabolism from which plant and animal are two divergent paths of evolution.
The origin of life is veiled in a mist which biological knowledge
