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WILLIAMSON, ON FORAMINIFERA. 105 
found on our coasts. It embraces a very accurate de- 
scription of each species, with a delineation by Tuffen 
West. The only complaint we could possibly make about 
the book is that the Ray Society has chosen to publish it in 
a quarto form, when it would have been so much more con- 
venient as an octavo, or even duodecimo. In these days of 
locomotion, when we pack our microscopes into the smallest 
possible space, we also want our books small, if they are to 
travel with us. It was all very well for our forefathers to 
publish quartos and folios, for they had leisure to admire 
the grandeur of their tomes; but we have the greatest 
difficulty in keeping up with our day, and everything that 
spares time must be accepted as a boon. 
Mr. Williamson has given an interesting history of the 
discovery of the Foraminifera. From this we learn that 
Hooke, the father of microscopical science, was the first 
to describe a species of this family. In his “ Micro- 
graphia” there is figured apparently a Rotalia, which had 
been found in some sea sand. This was in 1665. There 
it remained in solitary grandeur, the only representative of 
this extensive family, for upwards of a century. About this 
time, Mr. Boys published his ‘ Testacea minuta rariora,” 
in which he gave drawings of twenty-two supposed species. 
it was not, however, till Montague published his “ Testacea 
Britannica,” in 1803, that the Foraminifera began to receive 
that attention which their varied forms and curious nature 
claimed. Still the group remained chaotic and misunderstood, 
until D’Orbigny, in 1826, attempted to reduce it to something 
hke order; who, however, committed the great error of refer- 
ring these simple creatures to the group of Cephalopodous 
Mollusks. In 1835, Dujardin showed the absurdity of this 
classification, and placed the Foraminifera in his order Rhizo- 
poda. The labours of Professor Williamson himself and of Dr. 
Carpenter, and particularly of Schultze, have more recently 
added much to our knowledge of them. Their position is no 
longer a matter of doubt, and they are placed by the zoologist 
amongst the lowest groups of the animal series. 
The Introduction contains much matter of interest that 
we might present to our readers, but we must content our- 
selves with one extract on the method of collecting the 
Foraminifera : 
“ Localities and Modes of Collection.—A pocket-lens of moderate power 
usually enables us to discover Foraminifera in shel/y sand from any part of 
our coasts, but these are usually worn and imperfect specimens. The 
common sand of our beaches is rarely productive in any degree. The home 
of these objects is in the deeper parts of the ocean, commencing with the 
Coralline zone of Forbes, where there is always a few fathoms of water, 
