175 



a somewhat similar extension of the digestive apparatus into all the 

 parts of the animal. Professor Rymer Jones has already pointed out 

 how one connexion appears to be established between the Polypi/era 

 and the Infusoria, through the Bowerbankice on the one hand and the 

 Rotifera on the other. May not the Foraminifera constitute another 

 of these inosculating links, alike approaching the Port/era through 

 the calcareous sponges, the Infusoria through the Amabce, the Poly- 

 pifera through the Cristallarice and the Acephalee, whilst in any linear 

 arrangement they might be placed immediately above the Porifera ? 



It may be necessary to vindicate my consistency by observing that 

 my opinions on this subject have been modified since I published the 

 preceding memoirs, already referred to, when I was more disposed to 

 admire the classification of M. Ehrenberg, or rather was slow at be- 

 lieving that he could be in error. Further investigation, however, has 

 led me to adopt the views which I now venture to propound ; believ- 

 ing them to be more in accordance with the phenomena presented by 

 the highly interesting objects to which they are applied. So little 

 has hitherto been done in this department, which offers a wide field 

 for observation on the part of those who live in a more favourable lo- 

 cality, that this memoir, as well as any other, must as yet be regarded 

 only as an attempt to contribute something towards directing the in- 

 quiry into the right channel. It will but be after similar investiga- 

 tions are extensively multiplied, that general views can be permanently 

 adopted with safety ; shice such peculiar forms of Foraminifera as 

 Orbiculina, Amphistegina, and similar complex structures, only found 

 in remote parts of the ocean, and which, consequently, have not yet 

 been examined in the living state properly, if at all, cannot fail — when 

 their soft structures are carefully investigated — to present highly in- 

 teresting and novel results, and which might lead to the overthrow of 

 all generalizations previously deduced from limited data. 



