FOOL'S-PAUSI.r.Y. 



FORAMINIFERA. 



world, whiUt an attempt to maintain the habiU of youth and middle 

 age baa cost many declining ones their liven. 



The mode of life influence* the diet The sedentary, the inactive, 

 do not consume ao much muscle and nerve in their exutence as the 

 active and laborious, and accordingly require lea* food. The tailor 

 ought not to eat ao much ai the day-labourer ; and the lady all day 

 in her drawing-room or carriage cannot expect the appetite or the 

 enjoyment of food which ia bestowed by the laws of nature on her 

 housemaid. 



Other thing* being the same, more food is required in winter than 

 in summer, more in cold climates than in hot ones. This arises from 

 the greater consumption of certain parts of the food in maintaining 

 the animal heat in order to keep off the external cold. Hence, to 

 bring the appetite of Christmas to the Midsummer meal is to run the 

 hazard of a surfeit ; whilst the traveller who carries the eating habit* 

 of the north to countries under the line frequently perishes of fevers 

 brought on by repletion. 



(Moleachott, Phytiologie da NaJirungt Mitlel ; Ward, Science of 

 Health ; Food of Han, in Knight's Shilling Volumes ; Lecture* on Ike 

 food of Man, by Dr. Lankestcr; Lttteri on Diet, by Dr. Lankester; 

 Pereira, On Ike Diet of Man ; Liebig, Chemiitry of Food ; Liebig, 

 LeUert OH Ckemiitry; Archer, Popular Economic Botany; Carpenter, 

 PrmcipU* of Pkytiology.) 



FOOL'S-PARSLEY. [^TIICSA.] 

 FOOT. [SKELETON.] 



FOOT-PRINTS, impressions of the feet of Reptiles, as of Cheirothe- 

 rium [AMPHIBIA], and Birds (Omithichnitet), are now become recog- 

 nised evidence of the existence of particular races of organic beings, 

 in certain geological periods, though no other traces of them remain. 

 By this evidence, the air-breathing Vertebrata appear to be of higher 

 antiquity than was formerly supposed, and to date from the lower 

 parts of the Silurian system. 



FORAMIXIFERA (Foramen, fero), a group of minute Marine 

 Animals of low organisation, consisting of a slimy transparent jelly, 

 invested with a hard, usually calcareous shell; found in sen-Bond 

 and amongct marine refuse dredged up from deep water. Owing to 

 many of their shells having a spiral form, these creatures were long 

 thought to be highly organised Molliuca, allied to the living A'autilut 

 an error into which most naturalists fell until recently, when these 

 animals became the subject of a more rigorous and searching inves- 

 tigation than they bad previously undergone. 



Though usually very minute, their elegant forms early attracted 

 the attention of naturalists. They were noticed by Gualtieri, Planchus, 

 and Ledermnller, prior to the appearance of the ' Syrtema Naturae ' 

 of l.muuuK. In the latter work they are included amongst the 

 \autili, the animal, as well as that of the recent Nautiltu pompiliut 

 with which Linnicus associates them, being alike unknown to the 

 Swedish naturalist. In the 12th edition are descriptions of 15 species. 

 In 1780 Soldani, on Italian priest, published two elaborate works 

 abundantly illustrated, and largely devoted to the recent and fossil 

 forms of Foraminiferous Shells. He divides them into groups (such 

 as Nautili, Jf ammonite, and Ortliocerata) in the most arbitrary manner 

 but the works are monuments of his labour and perseverance. In 

 1784 some of the British species were figured by Walker in his 

 ' Teatacea Minuta Rariora.' The ' British Conchology ' of Montague 

 1803 (and 'Supplement,' 1808), contained a still larger number o 

 British forms, respecting the majority 67 which the error of Linnicus 

 was still followed ; but some were shown to be so different from the 

 true Nautili as to require removing from that genus. In 1803 Fichte 

 and Moll figured many of the spiral forms, which they included amongst 

 the Nautili. In 1808 De Montfort attempted to subdivide the group 

 into a number of separate genera, but still regarded them as Cephalo- 

 poda, in which view he was followed by Fleming and other more 

 recent writers. 



In 1626 the study of the Fvraminifera received a fresh impulse 

 from the labours of M. D'Orbigny, a French naturalist, who in tha 

 year presented his first memoir on the subject to the French Academy 

 This memoir embraced the classification of the whole of the Cephalo 

 podous Molliuca, or animals allied to the Cuttle-Fish ; with which 

 group of organisms D'Orbigny, like his predecessors in the study 

 imagined the Foraminifera to have the closest affinities. He ilii id.-- 

 the Utter into five great families, which were a^ain subdivided into 

 a number of genera, most of them new ; the various forms being thus 

 thrown' into natural croups in a way that had not previously been 

 attempted even by De Montfort Though D'Orbigny retained the 

 erroneous idea of his predecessors as to the zoological relation of the 

 Foraatinifera, this error did not affect the value of his subdivision 

 of the class, which constituted an important step in advance of al 

 that had been done by others. Indeed the valu* of his classification 

 is shown by its retention in the writings of all who have succeedet 

 him in the study. He distributed the species into 55 genera, intro 

 dicing into the catalogue an enormous number of new forms, whicl 

 he discovered in sands brought to him from various port* of the globe 

 The views of D'Orbigny and his predecessors respecting the Molluscou 

 character of these animals were sanctioned by Cuvier in an edition o 

 the ' Animal Kingdom, 1 published in 1828. 



I ii I k :'.j M. 1 Injardin presented a memoir to the ' Annalrs des Sciences 

 Naturullc*,' based upon an examination of the recent animals of tha 



Furaminiftra, in which he rejected the idea that they had any aflinitics 



with the Mollutca. He pointed out the fact that the animal which 



tenanted the calcareous shell was a mere animated slime, having no 



visible organisation, and consequently very different from the highly 



organised Cephalopoda, with which they had previously been asso- 



inted. He considered their true zoological position to be near the 



Amaba, commonly known as the Proteus Animalcule, and that they 



onstitute part of a larger group, to which he assigned the name of 



ikizopoda. In 1834 and 1839 Professor Ehrenberg presented two 



memoirs to the Academy of Berlin, in which he advocated the opinion 



hat the Foraminifera were polype-bearing animals, allied to the 



''luitra and other Moss-Corals, by him termed Bryoioa, and of wlii. h 



hey formed the first order, PolytluUamia. He also assigned to them 



uternal organs which no other observers have been able to discover : 



>ut notwithstanding these errors he did good service by the discovery 



hat the White-Chalk Rocks were principally composed of the aggre- 



;ated shells of Foraminifera, which by their gradual accumulation 



lad thus produced widely-extended masses of calcareous strata, many 



lundreds of feet in thickness. The existence of numerous Fossil 



Foraminifera in the Chalk had been demonstrated by Mr. Lonsdale 



n 1835 ; and still later, the rich harvest of beautiful forms to be 



obtained from these Cretaceous strata was further demonstrated by 



. D'Orbigny in his monograph ' On the Foramiuifera of the White 



thalk.' 



In 1845 Professor Williamson published a memoir in the ' Transac- 

 tions of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester,' in which 

 IK further demonstrated the entire' absence of any real resemblance 

 Between the Foraminifera and the Cephalopoda, and tha consequent 

 necessity of arranging the former in an inferior portion of the zoolo- 

 gical scale. At first he adopted the idea of Ehreuberg, but in a 

 subsequent memoir (1848) he came to the conclusion that they were 

 not polypiferouK, but that they approximated to the Sponges on the 

 one hand, and, as had been asserted by M. Dujardin, to the Amctba on 

 the other : their true position in any linear arrangement being imme- 

 diately above the former of these classes of objects. In another 

 memoir, read in 1851, describing the complicated structure of some 

 forms of the genus Orbiculina, Professor Williamson says, " Looking 

 at the structure of the shell of the Orbiculina adunca, and especially 

 at the large orifices which communicate between its various cavities, 

 we cannot fail to observe that it is a reticulated calcareous skeleton, 

 whose proportionate relation to the size of the soft animal has differed 

 but little from that of the siliceo-keratose network of mnny sponges 

 to the slimy substance with which they are invested. The attempt 

 to isolate the various portions of 0. adunca, and raise each portion to 

 the rank of an individual animal, even in the limited sense in which 

 we should admit such a distinction in the polypes of a IfrrtiUaria or 

 of a tlonjunia, appears to me wholly inadmissible. If the soft 

 structures of Orbiculina are as devoid of visible organisation as those 

 of our British Foraminifera, and I have very little doubt that such 

 will prove to be the case, the whole animal will be very little raised 

 above tliePolypifera, only possessing a symmetrical calcareous skeleton, 

 which is at once both external and internal." (' Transactions of 'the 

 Microscopical Society of London.') 



In 1846 M. D'Orbigny published his work 'On the Fossil Fora- 

 miuifera of the Tertiary Basin of Vienna,' in which he abandoned 

 the views advocated in his earlier writings. He now recognised the 

 inferiority of these objects to the Cephalopoda, with which he had 

 previously arranged them. He rejected the idea that they were 

 aggregated creatures, as held by Ebrenbcrg, as also the existence of 

 the intestinal canal and organs of reproduction described by the 

 illustrious Prussian ; but he arrived at the ' conclusion that they 

 held a position intermediate between the Polypiffra and the 

 A'c/i inodermata. 



M. D'Orbigny says, " After what has preceded upon the character- 

 istics of the Foraminifera, the comparison demonstrates that they 

 cannot be'arranged in any of the known Zoological Classes. Much less 

 complex than the Echinoilermata or the Polypifera as to their internal 

 organisation, they have through their filaments (pseudopodia) part 

 of the mode of locomotion of the former, and are l.y their i.-oKt.-.!. 

 non-aggregated, free existence, more advanced in the scale than tin- 

 latter. This individual existence of the Foraminifera, the liberty 

 which they enjoy, and their mode of locomotion, are characters 

 which deserve to be taken into consideration. Although less complex 

 than many Polypiftra, they have not a common aggregate life. A 

 multitude does not unite to form a regular body as amongst the 

 Polfptfera.- They are locomotive, which the others are not. Their 

 means of locomotion are complex, and the great regularity of the 

 testaceous envelope of their segments places them far above the 

 Polypifera, On the other hand, much less perfect than the /. 

 tltrmata, they are very inferior to them in all r< .- 1 ' \\ e believe also 

 that, because of the radiation of their filament*, the position of the 

 F'lniuiinifera is in the interval (embnitM IM in. nti of the radiating 

 animals of Cuvier, between the Kchinodii-n,ni,i ;nnl the /W///>i/co, as 

 an altogether independent class." (' Sur les Foraiuinifores Fossiles du 

 Bassin Tertiaire de Vienne/p. 19.) 



There can be no doubt of their great inferiority to the Echinodcrmata, 

 which possess a distinct alimentary canal, a nervous circulating and 

 Mxunl system ; and connecting with the defined digestive cavity of 



