Canal- System in Foraminifera. 143 



se*pare"es par cette espece d'anatomie, nous avons tres-distincte- 

 ment apercu, tant sur la face interne que sur la face externe 

 des tables, des granulations hemisphenques ou de petits en- 

 foncements circulaires qui correspondaient a ces granulations, 

 et qui n'e"taient evidemment rien autre chose que les perfora- 

 tions dont la coquille "etait criblee durant la vie de l'animal " 

 (Section B, Expose* de nos Recherches, p. 20). 



An acquaintance with the contents of this l Memoire ' 

 (which was also printed separately) is a sine qua non to the 

 study of Foraminifera ; and I regret that I did not say more 

 of it in my paper on Operculina arabica. 



Then in the concluding part of the paragraph last men- 

 tioned in Messrs. Parker, Jones, and Brady's letter, we read : — 

 " in a word, we do not desire in any way to detract from the 

 originality of his [Mr. Carter's] work, except so far as in the 

 memoir itself he acknowledges previous investigations ; but 

 whatever might be the case then, it cannot be right now, 

 with the opportunity at hand of ascertaining how far his 

 published results really had priority, to ignore the main facts 

 of the papers we have quoted." 



To say nothing of the word " detract," that of " ignore " 

 would lead to the inference that I had not acknowledged what 

 others had done on the subject ; while, to the best of my belief, 

 I, at the time of writing the paper on the structure of Opercu- 

 lina arabica ('Annals,' 1852, vol. x. p. 161), and afterwards 

 in my paper on Foraminifera generally (ib. 1861, vol. viii. 

 p. 310), acknowledged every thing that had been previously 

 written on the subject. 



In fact, so far from such an acknowledgment detracting 

 from what I had stated, I felt that by acknowledging what 

 had already been done in the matter I was only substantiating 

 my own observations. Confirmation of the fact and pro- 

 mulgation of the truth were much dearer to me than the 

 trumpery honour of discovery. I knew which would be most 

 acceptable at the end ! 



Lastly, was it to be expected that I should go into all the 

 detail of this acknowledgment again , at a time when all I 

 wanted for the occasion was Schultze's independent and 

 valuable evidence of my having been very early acquainted 

 with the structure of Foraminifera? I did use the word 

 " system ;" but let any one refer to my paper on the structure 

 of Operculina arabica, and, contrasting it with what had been 

 previously done by others (which he will also find there), see 

 if the claim was unjustifiable. The illustrations to this paper 

 point out the " system " of foraminiferous structure both in 



