14 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



•case in which those vital operations, which he is 

 accustomed to see carried on by an elaborate apparatus, 

 are performed without any special instruments what- 

 ever — a little particle of apparently homogeneous jelly 

 changing itself into a greater variety of forms than the 

 fabled Proteus, laying hold of its food without 

 members, swallowing it without a mouth, digesting 

 it without a stomach, appropriating its nutritious 

 material without absorbent vessels or a circulating 

 system, moving from place to place without muscles, 

 feeling (if it has any power to do so) without nerves, 

 propagating itself without genital apparatus, and not 

 ■only this, but in many instances forming shelly 

 •coverings of a symmetry and complexity not surpassed 

 by those of any testaceous animals." 



orbicular, pyramidal, straight, helical or spiral, spiral 

 and discoidal, discoidal and produced (see Figures), 

 and braid-like. Some forms are externally smooth, 

 but many more are strengthened, and ornamented 

 with ribs, spines, and bosses or tubercles, sometimes 

 curiously sculptured, sometimes imperforate, except by 

 a single orifice, but more frequently punctured by 

 numerous holes, termed foramina, from whence they 

 are called foraminifera : these foramina being often 

 symmetrically disposed, and greatly adding to their 

 beauty. Difficult as it may be to realise that in the 

 coverings of such minute creatures the same con- 

 trivance to afford support to the walls under pressure 

 has been applied as in the case of the cephalapoda, 

 mollusca, echini, &c., it is undoubtedly the case, and in 



Fig. 3. 



Fig. 4. 



Fig. 5- 



Fig. 6. 



Fig. 7- 



Fig. 8. 



Fig. 9. 



Fig. 10. 



Fig. II. 



Fig. 12. 



Fig. 14- 



Fig. 16. 



Fig. 17- 



oraminifera. — Figs. 3, Geoponus stella-borealis (after removal of shell by acid); 4, Polystornellii regina: $, Lageiia gracilis; 

 6, Lagena lains; 7, Vertebratina striata; 8, Entoaclenia globosa ; 9, E. squamosa; 10, Flabellina rtigosa; 11, Cristel- 

 laria lanceolata; 12, Textitlaria. Marice ; 13, Rotalia Bcccarii ; 14, Polymoyphina coinplanata; 15, Spirocidiita Carpen- 

 teri; 16, Quinque-loculina ; 17, P. Fichtdliaiia. 



Wonderful enough it will appear that these molecules 

 ■ of jelly, not invested by any membrane or integument, 

 can exist in a fluid without disintegration, but in- 

 finitely more marvellous that such jelly atoms, desti- 

 tute of organs, should construct habitations exhibiting 

 previously unsuspected and often most elaborate 

 structure, frequently traversed by a complicated system 

 of canals, which seem to have an important func- 

 tion in the nutrition of the creature, and rivalling 

 in beauty the most exquisite sculptured coverings of 

 the " testacea," i.e. shell-covered animals ; yet so it is, 

 and richly does their singular beauty merit all the 

 enthusiastic attention lavished upon them. These 

 tiny shells present an immense variety of forms, 



these shells, so small that thousands, or even tens of 

 thousands, may be contained in a child's thimble, we 

 yet here, also, see combined ornament and utility, 

 lightness and strength, these external characters being 

 usually so well marked as to be readily recognised, 

 even with a common hand magnifier, notwithstanding 

 their minuteness. 



Some of the simple forms, monothalamia, " single- 

 chambered," consist of a single chamber only, as in the 

 Lagena and Gromia types. 



Examples of these are shown in Figs. 5, 6, 8, '9. The 

 greater number are, however, complex structures — 

 these latter being called polythalamous, i.e., *' many 

 chambered," each chamber of thcshell being distinct ; 



