8 HISTORICAL SUMMARY. 



the animal in a manner which showed that he accepted M. Dujardin's account of it, though 

 without tlie least reference to the real discoverer of its Rhizopod character. He assigned to 

 the group a place among the Radiata of Cuvier, intermediate between the Echinodermata and 

 the Polypifera, on no other grounds, as it would appear, than a fancied analogy between the 

 pseudopodia issuing through the pores of the shell and the ambulacral cirrhi of an Asterias, 

 and between those put forth from the aperture of the last chamber and the oral tentacles of a 

 Hydra. This account is repeated verbatim in his subsequent work on the ' Fossil Foraminifera 

 of the Vienna Basin' (lxxiii). 



It cannot but seem surprising that, notwithstanding the light thrown upon the 

 inquiry by M. Dujardin in 1835, Prof. Ehrenberg should in 1838 have announced to the 

 Berlin Academy his conclusion, professedly based on observations of certain forms of these 

 animals in their living state, that their true place in the animal kingdom is among the Bryozoa 

 (xxxix). He described them as possessing a distinct alimentary canal, which extends from 

 segment to segment ; this, however, instead of being single, as in Nonionina, may (he tells us) 

 be multiple, as in Geoponus ; so that we must regard each segment of the latter, however 

 apparently resembling the simple segment of the former, as in reality composed of several 

 adhering bodies. In one instance (he affirms) he found the mouth surrounded by a plumose 

 sensory and prehensile apparatus, like that of the Fliistrts and Halcyonella ; but, generall)r 

 speakmg, he admits that this is altogether wanting, the mouth being a simple aperture. He 

 saw minute extensile tentacula proceeding from all parts of the sieve-like shell, as described 

 by Dujardin, and admitted their resemblance to the pseudopodia of Difflitgia, &c. ; but he 

 remarks, " the rest of their organization, which Dujardin has overlooked, removes them from 

 the Infusoria quite as far as from a chaotic primitive substance." Besides the alimentary 

 canal. Prof Ehrenberg described a yellowish-brown granular mass as accompanying and 

 sometimes surrounding it up to the last of the spirals ; this he considered as an ovary (xl).— 

 To these views he has lately expressed his continued adhesion (xliv), notwithstanding their 

 complete inconsistency with the results of all the more recent and trustworthy observations 

 upon the structure of Foraminifera ; and he has contested those of Prof. Schultze in particular 

 with an irritation and tenacity difficult to reconcile with the single-minded devotion to truth 

 which a Naturalist who has rendered such services to science might be expected to manifest.* 



Our appreciation of the value of the characters afforded by the form, position, and 

 multiplication of the apertures of communication between the chambers of the shell, must 

 obviously differ essentially, according as we suppose these to give passage to an organ of such 

 fundamental importance as an alimentary canal, or regard them as merely serving for the 

 connexion of the different segments by stolo?is of sarcode. For variations which in the former 

 case must be regarded as indicative of such essential differences, both in structure and 

 function, as would rightly characterise distinct genera or even distinct families, may easily be 

 admitted on the latter view to be of such comparatively trivial moment as to rank no higher 

 than specific characters, or perhaps even to be matters of individual difference. As I have 

 already pointed out, the essential importance of this consideration was altogether disregarded 



* The Classification of Foraminifera based by Professor Ehrenberg upon views so erroneous, could 

 not be expected to replace that whicli was previously in vogue ; and as it is now seldom or never 

 referred to save as a matter of historical interest, there is no occasion to discuss its demerits in detail. 



