Alcide d^Orlngny. 53 



appears to contradict or modify his previous distribution/ but 

 the principle remains the same, and Fischer points out that 

 his deductions were subsequently confirmed by many English 

 zoologists.'-^ 



This Memoir emphasizes d'Orbigny's worst fault, whicli is that 

 of making broad generalizations from insufficient material. Thus 

 he founded in this Memoir the genus Bolivina (of which he records 

 three species) as the only representative of the Textulariidee ; not 

 only are many Textularian species of frequent occurrence in these 

 latitudes, but he should have been familiar with the genus Bolivina 

 from his earliest years. It is common at La Eochelle, and must 

 have occurred in his Cuban and Canary Islands material.^ 



X. — The Paris Chalk Memoir. 



This Memoir, probably written early in 1839, and read before 

 the Societe Geologique de France on December 2 in that year,* 

 was d'Orbigny's first contribution to the literature of the fossil 

 Foraminifera. It was probably written before the three Memoirs 

 above noticed, though he says (see ante, p. 43) that they are in 

 course of publication ; he mentions in connexion with three species 

 that he had found allied forms in the Canaries, but otherwise he 

 does not refer to the Memoirs.^ Indeed, he says that since the 

 publication of the " Tableau Methodique " no living species had 

 been described,^ and only a very few fossil species until the 

 appearance of Eoemer's paper on the Tertiary Foraminifera of 

 Germany in the previous year.'' 



The Memoir under review is to some extent a comparative 

 essay on the Cretaceous of several localities ; besides that from 

 the Paris Basin, he had studied the Chalk Foraminifera of the 

 Loire, the Gironde, of Southern France, and of Belgium, and he gives 



» IX., p. 15. 2 XXI., p. 438. 



' See Appendix F, note 1, p. 98. 



* " Memoire sur les Foraminiferes de la Craie Blanche du Bassin de Paris," 

 Mem. Soc. Geol., France, iv. (1840), pp. 1-51, pis. i.-iv. An anoiiymous writer in 

 " Science Gossip " in 1870 gave an abstract of this Memoir in which all the figures 

 are reproduced the same size as the originals, pp. 81-83, figs. 75-94 ; pp. 106-108, 

 figs. 103-119 ; pp. 155-157, figs. 138-156. 



' Of course it must be borne in mind that d'Orbigny would never have 

 admitted that a recent and a fossil species could be identical (see p. 17). 



'^ On this occasion he does appear to have ignored Dujardin's observations. 



' Here, again, is one of the instances in which d'Orbigny confvised dates, 

 caused no doubt by adding notes and passages while, his work was going through 

 the press. He gives as the date of Roemer's paper 1839, referring of course to 

 his " Gephalopoden des Norddeutschen tertiaren Meeressandes," Neues Jahrb, f. 

 Min., etc. (1838), pp. 381-394, pi. iii. (Stuttgart). 



