32 HENRY B. BRADY. 
CiPHALOPODES was divided into three orders,—I. Cryp- 
todibranches ; Il. Stphoniféres ; WI. Foraminiferes ; and 
of these the last two, which comprised Mollusca with cham- 
bered shells, were distinguished from each other by the S?- 
phoniferes having the septa traversed by a continuous tube, 
whilst in the Foraminiferes the chambers communicated with 
each other by an aperture or foramen,' or by several such. 
There is little in d’Orbigny’s classification or in his defi- 
nition of the Order that commends itself to the student of 
the present day, and it is even probable that the term 
‘Foraminifera ”’ is more commonly associated with the 
general perforation of the shell-wall, which is a conspicuous 
feature of a single group, than with the character it was 
originally designed to indicate; nevertheless, it is certain 
that no other name which has been suggested—whether 
Rhizostomes, Stmplectoméres, Polypodes, Trematophores, 
Asiphonoides or Polythalamia—has found the same accept- 
ance amongst naturalists. The term Polythalamia has 
been adopted by Ehrenberg, in his voluminous treatises, 
and to some extent also by Max Schultze, but by others it 
bas been seldom employed except as an alternative name ; 
and it is open to the objection that, etymologically, it is 
scarcely applicable to an assemblage of organisms of which 
a not inconsiderable proportion are monothalamous. 
It may be questioned whether our knowledge of the 
structure and life-history of the animals constituting the 
Order, as distinct from their tests, is sufficiently extensive 
for purposes of nomenclature—the number of arenaceous 
types, for example, concerning which we have any recorded 
observations on living specimens, is very small—but, so far 
as is known, the term “ Rhizopoda Reticularia,” suggested 
by Dr. Carpenter and accepted by Prof. F. E. Schulze and 
others, is perfectly appropriate. 
At the same time we may remember that it is to d’Or- 
bigny we owe the first recognition of the Foraminifera as a 
distinct zoological group, as well as the researches which 
gave the first impulse to their independent study, and, in 
absence of any weighty argument to the contrary, rule and 
custom alike suggest the acceptance of the name given by 
him and already generally adopted. 
Prof. R. Hertwig, in the scheme of classification of the 
Rhizopoda, appended to his recent admirable memoir on the 
Radiolaria,? limits the application of the term Foraminifera, 
1 Foramen (Lat.), “an opening or hole produced by boring ; an aperture.” 
‘Der Organismus der Kadiolarien, by Dr. Richard Hertwig, 1879, 
p. 142. 
