Mr. P. H. Gosse on Locomotion in the Foraminifera, 365 



a paper on Gladiolus Segetum (Ber. Berl. Acad. May 22, 1856), in which 

 he takes up our view entirely, from independent observation, made in 

 ignorance of our researches. A notice of his results appeared in the 

 Annals, ser. 2. xviii. p. 217, 1856. In a still more recent essay by Hof- 

 meister (Jahrb. d. wiss. Botanik, Heft i. Berlin, 1856), the existence of a 

 cellulose membrane on the germinal vesicle before fecundation, is said to 

 be usual, but liable to exception. — A. H.] 



[To be continued.] 



XXXVI.— Ow the Presence of Motile Organs, and the Power of 

 Locomotion, in Foraminifera. By P. H. Gosse, P.R.S. 



In a valuable paper by Mr. Macdonald " On Deep Soundings in 

 the Pacific," which was published in the ' Annals of Nat. Hist/ 

 for October last, there occurs the following passage : — " With 

 all our opportunities of observing living Foraminifera in the 

 South-western Pacific, where they abound in the most diversified 

 forms, we have never been able to discover their branched 

 ' pseudopodia,^ so called, or the slightest evidence of the crawling 

 movement which they are reputed to exhibit; while we can 

 vouch for the actual fixity of some." 



I have read this passage over and over, and cannot come to 

 any other conclusion than that, as the language is unfimited, it 

 is intended that the doubts should apply to the whole class of 

 Poraminifera. As the opinions of so excellent a zoologist will 

 have deserved weight, though founded on evidence which is 

 merely negative, it may not be amiss to furnish some positive 

 testimony on the opposite side — testimony which I should other- 

 wise have thought perfectly superfluous. For, on turning to 

 the works of one of our most eminent physiologists. Dr. Car- 

 penter, who has devoted much careful attention to these minute 

 animals, I find him (in his treatise " On the Microscope," for 

 instance, p. 503 et seq.) recognizing, without any doubt, the 

 existence of pseudopodia; and he reproduces two beautiful 

 figures, after Schultze, of the genera Gromia and Rosalina, taken 

 from the life, in which these organs are seen extended in copious 

 profusion. He does not, indeed, allude to their power of 

 changing place ; but to this fact, as well as to the existence of 

 pseudopodia, I can add my own testimony. 



In the spring of 1855, at Weymouth, I obtained, chiefly in 

 the minute tufted Algse, such as Corallina, Polysiphonia, and 

 Ceramium, a good many specimens of the pretty little PolystO' 

 mella crispa. These were always found, a few hours after the 

 weed had been deposited in my vases, adhering to the glass, 

 with the pseudopodia extended in opposite directions, just as 



