216 RELATED TO POLYPES- 



type, consequent on an altered condition in the tempera- 

 ture and constituents of the sea. But an investigation 

 of the animals of such species as have been found in a 

 living state, has led to a great degradation in their 

 position ; and instead of being placed at the top of the 

 class Mollusca, we now find them occupying a very 

 humble station among Polypes. According to Dujardin, 

 who has well examined into their history, the animal, 

 in the Foraminifera, is absolutely deprived of distinct 

 organs of locomotion, and even of respiration, being 

 composed of a succession of joints or lobes, which go on 

 increasing successively, and enveloping each other. It 

 is coated by a shell, variously formed in different genera, 

 but having a common character in being pierced with 

 innumerable minute holes or pores, by which the con- 

 tained fleshy parts keep up a connection with the water. 

 The only time when the soft parts of the animal are 

 visible externally, is when a new joint is produced which 

 has not completed the formation of its shelly chamber. 

 On breaking the shell, the composition of the soft parts 

 of the animal is found to be as simple and of as low 

 organization as in the Hydra, or any other of the less 

 complex Polypes ; and if the shelly parts be dissolved in 

 a mixture of alcohol and weak nitric acid, the body 

 may be extracted entire, and will be found to consist of 

 a series of articulations, filling up the several chambers 

 of the shell. The various genera of Foraminifera are 

 not characteristic of the modern ocean merely, but 

 existed in former periods, and are found in geological 

 deposits of various ages. Nor do they seem to have 

 degenerated in size, the species of early date being no 



