286 CLASS V. CEPHALOPODA. ORDER I. POLYTHALAMIA. 
insufficient data ; the minute cellular bodies which constitute that family 
are only theoretically regarded as of cephalopodous origin, and we intro- 
duce them solely from our inability to disprove it. We shall endeavour 
to make a succinct exposition of their history, down to the present time, 
and the reader must then determine for himself whether the notions that 
are commonly entertained of the nature of these objects can be feasibly 
supported. 
The family of the multilocular Cephalopods is divided into two families, 
as follows : 
ForAMINIFERA. SIPHONOIDEA. 
Family 1. FORAMINIFERA. 
Testa minutissima, vitrea, loculis numerosis, varié constructis, com- 
posita, foraminibus parvulis plus minusve perforatis. 
The family of the Foraminifera was introduced by D’Orbigny for the 
reception of a number of very minute cellular bodies, which are referred 
to this portion of the animal kingdom upon the supposition that they are 
formed by certain cephalopodous mollusks ; they are found for the most 
part mingled with the sand on the sea-shore, or attached to sea-weed, 
shells, &c., and many of them are so diminutive in size as to be scarcely 
perceptible by the naked eye. These shells, if indeed (in a conchological 
sense) they be shells at all, consist of a number of separate and distinct 
chambers, of every imaginable variety of form, deposited or piled as it 
were one upon another, in all sorts of shapes, so that their plan of 
deposit is straight, curved, spiral, globular, discoidal, turbinated, nau- 
tiloid, trochiform, or, in fact, any other conceivable form. The cham- 
bers vary considerably too in size, as well as in the character, which is 
indicated by the title, namely, that of being more or less pierced with a 
number of small holes. The few that were known to Linnzus were 
referred by him to the same part of the system as now, his genus Nau- 
