Mr. W. Clark’s Observations on recent Foraminifera. 381 
As to the other organs of O. Legumen, I could only observe in 
the two or three anterior cells, a dried, perhaps in life, a pulpy 
mass, apparently inclosed in a membranous sac of a brown co- 
lour, but in the posterior chambers there were scarcely any traces 
of this substance, as these appeared to be nearly transparent ; 
it may also be presumed that the membranous sac contains the 
viscera. 
The constructor of the calcareous cells of O. Legumen, which 
communicate with each other by constricted orifices, seems not 
to be an animal with lobes, deposited in the chambers, or an ag- 
gregation of polypes linked together, with a common canal for 
reproduction, sustentation and depuration, but a solitary being 
produced from a gemma, cast by the parent on a marine substance, 
which, springing therefrom, constructs the first cell, in which it 
lives and dies, having previously by gemmation produced its suc- 
cessor, the architect of the second cell, and so on, until nature 
has completed the appointed number. 
These inferences arise from the brown membrane, or mantle, 
or pulp, not being visible in any other than the two or three 
anterior chambers ; the matters which were originally in the pos- 
_ terior, or first cells, probably more hyaline, appear to be lost by 
collapse and desiccation of the animal. 
I have also removed by acids the calcareous cases of many 
others of the Foraminifers, and they have nearly presented the 
same appearances that have just been stated ; from this it would 
appear that the live polype is only-to be found in the last cell, 
those of the preceding ones having each perished as soon as it 
had produced the germ of its successor. 
The branchial organs are probably those minute delicate fila- 
mentary points observed by M. Ehrenberg and others, and are 
perhaps capillary prolongations of the membranous sac or mantle, 
and serve for the aération of the circulating fluid as well as for 
effecting the formation of the calcareous case: that these com- 
munications with the animal through the foramina have not been 
discovered in the membrane investing it cannot be a matter of 
surprise, when its minuteness and tenuity are considered, and 
the examinations being made, if not in a completely dried state, 
at least in conditions of great collapse. 
These filaments have been considered as spurii pedes, and sub- 
servient to locomotion ; this idea I shall prove by and by to be 
erroneous, by showing that the Orthocera, and beyond doubt, 
some of the Lagene, are fixed to marine substances by a posterior 
mucronal style ; and I believe that the rest of the Foraminifera, 
when in their natural habitats, are fixtures. 
The contents of cabinets are composed of detached substances 
found in coral sand, with their characters usually lost by continual 
