1915] on Beauty, Design and Purpose in the Foraminifera 481 



shell. The common VerneuiUna pohjstropha (81. 71) of our shores 

 exhibits this phenomenon also to a remarkable degree. It is, how- 

 ever, the inteUig'ence (and I use this word with a full sense of the 

 responsibility which I incur in using it) displayed in the manipulation 

 of the material which compels the attention of the biologist. ^Ye 

 are all familiar with the beautifully built tubes of the Caddis worm 

 (SI. 72), and some of the marine worms build tubes of no less 

 remarkable ingenuity, as, for instance (SI. 73), Amphiciene, and one 

 local variety of this worm constructs its tube (SI. 74) as neatly as a 

 bricklayer building a wall out of fragments of sponge-spicules of a 

 carefully selected size. But these are Metazoa, higher animals, 

 endowed with organs and senses. The Foraminifera, I must repeat 

 for emphasis, are unicellular creatures without any differentiated 

 organs or even structure of any kind whatever. 



Take the common arenaceous form (SI. 75), FsammospJmera 

 fiisca, which builds itself into a roughly agglutinated house of sand 

 grains. There is no selection here. There is none in the variety 

 F. testacea (SI. 76), which uses only the shells of dead and living 

 Foraminifera — it uses them because it has nothing else to use ; but 

 P. parua (SI. 77), finding itself by its small size and free habit liable 

 to suffocation in the ooze on which it lives, builds its house round a 

 catamaran spar formed of a long sponge-spicule, which buoys it up 

 upon the mud surface. Another species, P. rustica (SI. 78), builds 

 in the spaces of a tent-pole arrangement of such spicules — several 

 individuals (SI. 79) frequently combining to form a mutually support- 

 ing mass. This creature fills in the triangular spaces between the 

 main tent-poles with broken spicules of successively graduated lengths, 

 and when it arrives at an awkward terminal space finds and in- 

 corporates a truncated triaxial sponge-spicule (SI. 80) to fill in the 

 angle. 



It is when we come to the devices employed l)y the Forami- 

 nifera for their protection from living foes, or the forces of nature, 

 that their purposive intelligence becomes the most phenomenal. 

 Many of the larger and doubtless more succulent forms are pecu- 

 liarly liable to attack from parasitic worms — an elaborate study of 

 which has been made by Prof. Rhumbler.^ A striking instance of 

 this occurs in the case of Grithionina pisum (SI. 81), which has a 

 softly agglutinated shell, which is often found (as in one of the 

 specimens exhibited) bored by worms. Certain individuals (SI. 82) 

 have arrived at protecting themselves with a chevaux cle /rise of 

 sponge-spicules, and these we never find, so far as our experience 

 goes, suffering from these attacks. Haliphysema rarmdosa (SI. 83) is 

 another easily attacked species, and it protects its aperture with a 

 similar defensive apparatus. The same protective investment is 



^ L. Rhumbler, Beitrage zur Kenntniss der Rhizopoden, Zeitschr. Wiss. 

 ZooL, vol. Ivii. p. 589. 1894. 



