352 Mr. H. J. Carter 07i Points of Distinction 



having previously examined many others (both living and 

 dead), together with many Foraminifera under the like con- 

 ditions as well as in a fossilized state, I have, as a matter of 

 course, come to certain conclusions in my own mind respecting 

 the general points of distinction between these two classes of 

 organisms after they have become fully developed. The germ or 

 "beginning" being apparently alike in all, that which chiefly 

 concerns us is what the special vitality in each can make out 

 of the germ. 



Taking, then, the sarcode first, which can only be successfully 

 studied in the living state, we find that the pseudopodial pro- 

 longations from Spongilla in the mass, are short, coarse, more 

 or less conical, scantily branched, and seldom if ever reunited ; 

 while in the Foraminifera they are extremely long, delicate, 

 and more or less reunited into an oblique reticulation. 



Of the former I know of no figure that illustrates this better 

 than that of SjyongiUa which was published in September 1849 

 ('Annals,' vol. iv. pi. 4. fig. 2), and none better of the latter 

 than that by Dujardin of Miliola vulgaris (' Hist. Nat. des 

 Zoophytes Infusoires,' pi. i. fig. 14, 1841). 



I am not aware that in the sarcode itself of these pseudopodia 

 there is any distinguishing peculiarity which is worth noticing 

 here. 



When, however, we come to the composition of the mass, 

 then there are many points of diflference ; for while that of the 

 Foraminifera as yet has shown nothing recognizable beyond 

 granules, nuclei, ova, and probably contracting vesicles, that 

 of Sjiongilltty which is apparently much more complicated, 

 two kinds of surface-openings, called respectively 

 and "oscula " — the former minute and multitudinous, 

 and the latter comparatively scanty and large — both respectively 

 leading to more or less spherical groups of flagellated cells 

 (spongozoa) in the interior. The pores go in more or less 

 directly to the cavities where the groups of spongozoa are 

 situated ; and the oscula are the terminations of branched canals, 

 whose ramifications lead from the same points. Currents of 

 water &c. pass in through the pores and out through the 

 oscula. 



The spongozoon possesses a cilium, nucleus, and one or two 

 contracting vesicles, together with apparently nothing more 

 than a little granular mucus ; they take in crude food brought 

 to them through tlie pores, and eject the refuse through the 

 ramifications connected with the branched systems of excretory 

 canals that terminate respectively in the oscula. Ova are 

 present in the sarcode of both Sponges and Foraminifera ; but 

 the organs for their production have not yet been discovered. 



