NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 



Discovery of Nuclei in Foraminifera. — In a previous com- 

 munication^ on Qumquiloculina fusca (Brady), forming a 

 part of his valuable series of " Rhizopodstudien/' Pro- 

 fessor Eilhard Schulze already shadowed out his extremely 

 interesting and unexpected discovery of a nucleus in Fora- 

 minifera, and in a recent memoir he confirms and gives the 

 enlarged details of his remarkable discovery." It is highly 

 interesting that, simultaneously and independently, the same 

 discovery has likewise been made by Professor Hertwig,^ as 

 to which see below. 



Leaving aside the baseless views of the older authors, 

 such as D'Orbigny and Ehrenberg, who ascribed to the 

 sarcode body-mass of the Foraminifera a high organisation, 

 it is well known that, from Dujardin (the first to correctly 

 appreciate the real simplicity of their structure) onwards, 

 through a long series of years, even to Haeckel in his 

 * Gastrsea-Theorie,' this group of Rhizopoda has been re- 

 garded as destitute of nucleus — the body-mass apart from 

 the shells, in fact, but a simple single cytode or an aggre- 

 gate of cytodes. Hence the interest and value of the sur- 

 prising announcement made by these independent observers. 



That this important element in the organization should 

 have so long eluded observation is, perhaps, not at all sur- 

 prising when one considers the many difficulties in the way 

 of its perception presented by the shell (perfect or broken) , 

 the numerous granules of varied nature, oily and pigment, 

 food particles, &c., not to speak of the density and opacity 

 of the sarcode-mass itself. 



At the same time it is remarkable that the naturalist on 

 board H.M.S. Challenger, who specially studied the pelagic 

 Foraminifera, should have failed to detect it when devoting 

 so much time and attention to these organisms. 



It was only by the observation of very small species with 

 a delicate pellucid shell, and by application of acids to the 



' Schultze's ' Archiv fur Mikr. Anatomic,' Bd. xi, p. 136. 

 =* 'Arcliiv f. Mikr. Anat.,' Bd xiii, p. 9, t. 2, 3. 

 ^ ' Jenaisch Zeitschrift,' Bd. x, p. 41. 



