134 Mr. C. Davies Sbcrborn, on the 



in 1789 the first part of the ' Testaceographia,' of Ambrogio 

 Soldani appeared. This work, completed in 1798, consists of 

 228 quarto plates, with hundreds of figures, and it was upon 

 these figures that d'Orbigny founded many of his species. 



The rarest of all the books upon the Foraminifera appeared in 

 1791 ; it consists of six plates and a coloured wrapper, on which 

 are printed the descriptions, and is entitled, ' Sechs Kupfertafeln 

 mit Concbylien des Seesaudes,' by J. G. A. Batscli. This work 

 is remarkable for the accuracy of the figures, and for the 

 zoological arrangement of the individuals, which arrangement is 

 practically the same as that at present adopted. Only two copies 

 of this rare book are known to exist — one in Mr. H. 13. Brady's 

 library, and one in Vienna. Thanks to Mr. Brady, I am able 

 to-night to show you tracings of the figures in the Vienna copy 

 which is uucoloured. 



It is impossible here to mention the important writers of the 

 next thirty years, but they include Lamarck, Fichtel and Moll, 

 Denys de ]\lontfort, Defrance, Montagu, and others well known 

 to workers in this subject. Until the publication of Lamarck's 

 papers (1800-1804), the genus yautilus had been used for all the 

 forms, and the animal was considered to belong to the Cephalo- 

 poda amongst molluscs. It was reserved for Alcide d'Orbigny 

 to first separate the Foraminifera as a special order of Cephalo- 

 poda, and to reduce them to definite genera and species. His 

 ' Tableau Methodique de la Classe des Cephalopodes,' published 

 in 1826,* laid the foundation for the scientific study of these 

 beings. But even d'Orbigny, with all his acuteness, did not 

 understand the animal, and it was not until 1835, when Felix 

 Dujardin published his paper, " Observation sur les pretendus 

 Cephalopodes microscopiques,"+ that the true and definite nature 

 of the Foraminifera was established. Since 1826 the literature 

 has increased with extraordinary rapidity, about 2000 papers 

 having been written on the subject. The labours of Reuss, 

 Parker, Eupert Jones, Carpenter, Williamson, Brady and others 

 are too well known to need repeating here, and then- publications 

 are easily accessible in our great public libraries. 



We are still very imperfectly acquainted with the animal of 

 the Foraminifera, and the general description " a particle of 

 sarcode, with doubtful differentiation into ectosarc and endosarc, 

 occasionally presenting a nucleus and contractile vesicle, and 

 possessing the power of extension of the mass into pseudopodia, 

 which inosculate to form a network," still holds good for most of 

 the Ehizopoda. 



In some Rhizopods, Amoeba, Actinosphaerium, &c., the differ- 



* ' Aniiales des Sciences Naturelles,' vol. vii. 1826. 

 t Idini, ' Zoologie,' ser. 2, vol. iii. 



