FAMILY 1. FORAMINIFERA. 287 
tilus, on account of their multilocular structure ; and Fichtel, De Mont- 
ford, De Haan, D’Orbigny and Deshayes have successively laboured to 
prove their affinity with the Cephalopoda in general. The theory that 
these naturalists have advanced has not yet been proved, although we 
venture to introduce it. Cuvier, Owen, and a few of not much infe- 
rior celebrity, fearful of venturing beyond the limits of anatomical ex- 
perience, pass over them in comparative silence* ; Lamarck seems 
almost to depend upon the observations of Fichtel; De Blainville treats 
them with evident incredulity as internal shells; and Gray asserts that 
they are probably the cells of certain animals allied to the Polyzoa, a 
group of much inferior organization to the Molluscat. Be this as it 
* «M. De Blainville made also another important step in advance, by separating the Cepha- 
lopods with microscopic chambered shells, under the name of Cellulacea, from those with si- 
phonated shells, which he terms Po/ythalamacea; but subsequent researches have since proved 
that the Cellulacea of De Blainville (Foraminifera of D’Orbigny) ought to be removed alto- 
gether from the class Cephalopoda.” —Owen, ‘ Trans. of the Zool. Soc.,’ vol. 11. part 1. 1838. 
Ehrenberg also urges the propriety of their removal. 
+ ‘In Cases 7 and 8 are placed a series of models on an enlarged scale, and some speci- 
mens of minute bodies. The nature of the animals which form them is not known; and they 
may belong to several different orders. Sume have supposed them to be internal shells ; but 
this cannot be the case with all, as many are attached by their outer surface to sea-weeds and 
shells. From their being formed of numerous chambers, they have been generally associated 
with the Nawtili; but they differ essentially from the latter in their construction, which con- 
sists of a number of cells piled one on the other, and in having no terminal cavity for the re- 
ception of the body of the animal. The cells are furnished with one or more small mouths, 
and placed one on another in different directions, some forming straight lines, as Nodosaria, 
and others spiral ones, as Rotalia. In others the cells are half the length of a whorl, so that 
each new cell changes the situation of the mouth from one to the other end of the shell, as 
in the Miliole; and in others the cells are divided into numerous longitudinal tubes, as in 
Alveolina and Fabularia. 
““These animals have been generally arranged with the Nautili, and some have classed 
them with the Cephalopodous Mollusca, while others have thought they might be formed by 
animals allied to the Annelides. One author has proposed that they should be formed into a 
class, which he proposes to call Rhizopodes; but it is not improbable, when they shall have 
been more completely examined, that they will be found to be allied to the Polyzoa; and the 
body, which has been called their shell, may prove to be only a hardened skin, like the cells 
formed by that class of animals.”—Gray, ‘ Synopsis of the Contents of the British Museum 
for 1841.’ 
