CHAPTER IX 



FORAMINIFERAN AND SOME OTHER CORALS 



" J 'ai bien constate que toutes les loges sont occupees a la fois 

 par la substance glutineuse ; mais je n'ai point vu les expansions, 

 non plus que dans le Polytrema, que je conjecture appartenir a cette 

 meme familie (les Infusoires) d'apres la nature de la partie vivante." 

 — DujARDiN, Suites a Buffon : Infusoires, p. 259. 



The Foraminifera are best known to naturalists as the 

 constructors of the minute flask-shaped, oval, or chambered 

 shells that are found, sometimes in immense numbers, on 

 certain sands of the sea-shore or in the mud of the abysmal 

 depths of the ocean, and it might seem to many that it 

 would be quite out of place to include any of them in a treatise 

 on Corals. And yet there are some calcareous structures 

 formed undoubtedly by these primitive protoplasmic 

 organisms which have been classified with other corals in 

 the past history of zoology, and to this day might very 

 readily be regarded as the production of some Coelenterate 

 or Polyzoan organisms unless carefully examined. 



It is true that the vast majority of Foraminifera are 

 free and carry their calcareous skeletal structures with them 

 as they slowly creep along on the seaweed or drift at the 

 surface of the sea, and to such structures the word " shell " 

 of our common language is correctly applied. But when, 

 as in the cases to be described in this chapter, the calcareous 

 structure is permanently fixed to a foreign substance, which 

 may be a stone or a rock or a piece of seaweed, and grows 

 and branches into a tree-like form or constructs layer upon 

 layer of calcareous chambers to form a thick crust upon its 

 support, the word " shell " is not appropriate. The only 



176 



