33 1. Messrs. W. K. Parker and T. R. Jones on the 



The history and character of this work are so well given by 

 Prof. Williamson in his elegant Monograph on the Recent Fora- 

 minifera of Great Britain (1857) that we borrow the following- 

 extract from pages v and vi of the introduction of that work : — 



" The earliest British writer in whose works I have discovered 

 any notice of the Foraminifera is Hooker, the father of micro- 

 scopical science in this country. In his f Micrographia,' pub- 

 lished in 1665, he figures a single specimen, apparently of a 

 Rotalia, which he found in some sea-sand. This figure is copied 

 in the ' Micrographia Illustrata' of the elder Adams (1747). No 

 further progress was made until the time of Mr. Boys, the well- 

 known conchologist, whose labours converted Sandwich Bay 

 into classic ground. His discoveries amongst minute shells led 

 to the publication of the ' Testacea Minuta Rariora,' for which 

 work the drawings were made by Mr. George Walker, an intelli- 

 gent bookseller at Faversham, whilst the well-known Edward 

 Jacob wrote the descriptions*. The volume contained thirty- 

 six figures of Foraminifera, divided into twenty-two supposed 

 species ; but the descriptions are very brief, rarely exceeding 

 half-a-dozen words; and though the twelfth and thirteenth edi- 

 tions of Linnaeus's ' Systema Naturae ' had appeared, containing 

 both descriptions and binomial designations for the Linnaean 

 forms, Walker avoided assigning trivial names to his objects, 

 'through the fear of giving such as might in any way interfere 

 with those already given by Linnaeus to shells of the same 

 kinds f.' The fact that subsequent conchologists have usually 

 ascribed to Walker several of the specific names now employed, 

 requires a word in explanation. In 1787, George Adams the 

 younger published his volume of ' Essays on the Microscope.' 

 A second edition of this work, with considerable additions and 

 improvements, appeared in 1798, edited by Frederic Kanmacher, 

 who introduced into this edition Walker's figures of the Fora- 

 minifera, and appended to them generic and specific names in 



censis a Gul. Boys, Arm. S.A.S. Multa adidit, et omnium Figuras ope 

 Microscopii ampliatas accurate delineavit Geo. Walker. 4to, London 

 [1784]. 



* " No date is attached to this work ; but the copy in the library of 

 Mr. J. G. Jeffreys, with the use of which I have long been favoured, and 

 which was originally in the possession of Dr. Turton, contains the manu- 

 script date of May 1st, 1784. That this was the date of publication is 

 rendered increasingly probable by the fact that the copy in the library of 

 the British Museum, which formerly belonged to Sir Joseph Banks, con- 

 tains a manuscript letter from Jacobs to Sir Joseph, written to accompany 

 the two copies of the work that Walker sent to the worthy baronet. The 

 letter is dated May 2nd, 1784. For this fact I am indebted to Dr. Gray, 

 of the British Museum." 



t Test. Minut. Rar., Introduction, p. v. 



