160 



animaux constructeurs des coralines. L'etude que nous en avons 

 faite nous a prouve que ces inollusques etendent, developent plu- 

 sieurs bras, et que ces bras, malgre leur tenuite, sont armes des 

 cupules, tout comme ceux des seches, des poulpes et des calmars." 

 (' Conchyliologie Systematique,' vol. 1. p. 139). 



De Montford had evidently obtained a glimpse of the pseudopodia, 

 but the " cupules " are imaginary. He distinctly denies their having 

 been internal shells enclosed in the body of a mollusk, though 

 he considered that they had the power of polishing their external sur- 

 face, by means of an extensile mantle. A peculiar difficulty to 

 which I shall afterwards have to allude, had probably attracted his 

 attention. 



M. D'Orbigny, as is well known, afterwards took the opposite view ; 

 and though not ignorant of many of their peculiarities, he considered 

 them to be internal shells, surrounded by a cephalopodous mollusk. 



M. Dujardin was probably the first to record the exact results 

 of careful observations on the soft animals. He concluded that the 

 calcareous shell contained little more than an animated slime, capable 

 of protruding pseudopodia, but having little or no internal organisa- 

 tion. 



The investigations of M. Ehrenberg have thrown new light upon 

 the subject. The results, however, are too well known through the 

 labours of Mr. Weaver, to require much in the way of recapitu- 

 lation.* 



* See Annals and Mag. Nat. Hist. 1841, p. 380. Taylor's ' Scientific Memoirs,' 

 vol. iii. p. 319, et seq. 1843. The latter memoir materially modifies some views pro- 

 mulgated by M. Ehrenberg in the former one, especially with reference to the relation- 

 ship that existed between the shell and the animal. In the former paper, he concludes 

 from an examination of his Sorites orbiculus, that these two tissues are identical. In 

 the latter memoir, however, I find that he has published views on this point, agreeing 

 with those which I had arrived at from examining some recent Foraminifera which 

 he had not seen in a living state. For though he does not expressly refer to 

 the results which he previously obtained from Sorites orbiculus, distinguishing 

 between them and the conclusions to which he afterwards arrived, he speaks of the 

 calcareous shell of the animalcule being " an external envelope like a snail's shell." 

 (See Taylor's l Scientific Memoirs', ut supra, p. 368). The same memoir, I find, also 

 recognises the permanent oral (?) apertures in the calcareous shell, as the channels 

 through which the Naviculacea, &c. have found their way into the interior of the cham- 

 bers instead of through apertures in the skin, which became closed on the contraction 

 of the latter, as according to his previous views. It was against these that my argu- 

 ments were directed in two recent memoirs " On the Microscopic Organisms found in 

 the Mud of the Levant ; " (Memoirs of the Lit. and Phil. Soc. of Manchester, vol. 8) ; 

 and " On the British Species of the geuus Lagena,'' (Annals .Nat. Hist. 1848). 



