22 Transactions of the Society. 



position of your Eeporters, to anticipate their judgment, and in 

 a word to spare tliem the trouble of drawing up a Eeport. 

 Enlightened by the observations of M. d'Orbigny it has been easy 

 for him to recognize and appreciate the errors into which he (and 

 others) had fallen. He has thus been enabled to arm himself 

 with criticism, and use it more or less severely against his rivals, 

 to anticipate the criticisms with which he himself might be 

 attacked, to try to parry the blows which might be directed against 

 him, and to present his own method under the most favourable 

 aspect." He does not spare de Feriissac, who had attacked his 

 own work " Families naturelles du regne animal," in consequence 

 of which Geoffroy-St. Hilaire had foi^mally and persistently refused 

 to accept responsibility for these strictures/ He asks to be 

 allowed to reply to de Ferussac, " it being understood that 

 M. Geoffroy-St. Hilaire incurs no responsibility in this matter." 

 Latreille repeats the dictum of de Ferussac that " the Order of the 

 Foraminifera ... is a creation of M. d'Orbigny." ^ I cannot 

 avoid the reflection that in all branches of Science and Art 

 instances are not lacking in which the work of a young and com- 

 paratively unknown worker has been highly extolled, not so much 

 perhaps as a tribute to its intrinsic merit, as to serve as an oppor- 

 tunity of minimizing the work of already eminent and more 

 established labourers in the same field. Latreille points out that 

 seventy-three plates accompany the work ; we shall see (p. 36) 

 that this is roughly speaking the number of the completed 

 " Planches inedites " as they remain to-day, and he adds that 

 d'Orbigny's work should have been published as a Memoir of the 

 Academic des Sciences, if the author, in order to hasten its publi- 

 cation, had not given it to the Annales des Sciences Naturelles.^ 



That the publication was hurried is clear from the circum- 

 stances in which it appeared. D'Orbigny left France for South 

 America on July 29, 1826, when the preparations for his journey 



' He adds, " Although forced to be both judge and party, as often occurs to 

 us in correlative work, I shall endeavour always to comport myself according 

 to these rules, viz., the abnegation of all personal interest, impartial deference 

 to justice, honour and respect for the scientific body of which it is my glory to 

 be a member." This portion of the "Rapport" is a remarkably able piece of 

 argument and special pleading. 



" Latreille of course had the published " Tableau " before him, it having been 

 presented a month previously. 



^ Latreille is of course merely writing a review of the work, but it is unfor- 

 tunate that he lends his authority to some of d'Orbigny's sensational errors. For 

 instance, he says that the Foraminifera devour Polyzoa. This is clearly an echo 

 from Charles d'Orbigny's letter of 1819 (see p. 7), in which he suggests that the 

 Foraminifera clinging to the orifices of the polypidoms of the Polyzoa they were 

 examining were devouring them. He takes it, too, on trust from d'Orbigny 

 that the shores of France were poorly provided with Foraminifera as compared 

 with the Adriatic. But he calls attention to the anticipation by d'Orbigny of 

 Ehrenberg's observations upon the profusion of Foraminifera in the Chalk and 

 the Jurassic calcareous beds. 



