438: W. E. RITTER AND M. E. JOHNSON 
other, though obviously differing from one another in size. Both 
objects are living, and both have come to be what we see them by 
a process of organic growth. Can we properly ignore these sim- 
ilarities in our efforts to interpret the organism, because on the 
whole the differences between them are more numerous and con- 
spicuous than are the resemblances? Is it not at least possible 
that by turning to these few correspondences seriously they may 
serve as the starting point for the discovery of still others, and 
finally result in the detection of laws of organic growth and func- 
tioning that would greatly broaden our conceptions of, and hold 
upon, life phenomena? 
One reason for selecting the Foraminifera as a group with which 
to make the comparison is the fact that the comparison of these 
organsims with higher ones in somewhat the same way has been 
made by several other zoologists. For instance, Schaudin (’95) 
speaks of the production and breaking off of parts in Calcituba 
polymorpha Roboz. as having ‘‘eine gewisse Ahnlichkeit mit der 
Strobilation.”’ 
But the most interesting comparison from our standpoint, of 
Foraminifera with other organisms was made by L. F. de Pourtales 
in 1850. At the meeting that year of the American Association 
for the Advancement of Science Professor L. Agassiz presented a 
short communication from this young zoologist in which Agassiz 
said: 
Mr. Pourtales has, for the first time, pointed out a direct, well sustained 
analogy, which is to be found in the order of succession of the cells in for- 
aminiferae of the genera Textularia, Candima, Biloculina, Triloculina, 
and Quinqueloculina. This succession agrees fully with the succession 
of leaves in plants—so fully that it can be expressed by the same frac- 
tions with which botanists are now in the habit of expressing phyllotaxis 
in the vegetable kingdom. This is, therefore, an important additional 
link in the investigation of the plan which regulates the normal position 
of parts in organized beings—a link which may lead to include into one 
universal formula the rhythmic movements which preside over the de- 
velopment of all finite beings. (Pourtales, 750, p. 89.) 
This communication appealed strongly to at least one of those 
who heard it. At the next meeting of the association the presi- 
