Nature of the so-called " Bathybius." 333 



"This is, no doubt, in direct opposition to preconceived notions 

 of the distinction existing between the Protophyta and Pro- 

 tozoa; but I cannot help thinking that, on a closer scrutiny 

 of the grounds upon which the distinction is based, it will be 

 found to have its foundation in words rather than in established 

 facts, and that the vital attribute now claimed for the lowest 

 Protozoon is, in reality, as compatible with reason and observed 

 phenomena as some of the other attributes which have been 

 unhesitatingly acceded both to the Protozoa and the Proto- 

 phyta"*. 



"According to Dr. Carpenter, 'There is reason to consider 

 the shell-substance of the Foraminifera as an excretion from 

 the protoplasmic mass of which the body itself is composed, 

 just as the cellulose wall of the vegetable cell, which may be 

 consolidated by carbonate of lime (as in Corallines) or by 

 silex (as in Diatoms), is an excretion from the contained endo- 

 chrome'f. But inasmuch as the term 'excretion' involves 

 vitality, or, to put the case in other words, since the shell-sub- 

 stance would not he excreted were the animal dead, it is obvious 

 that the process is, in point of fact, one of secretion, dependent, 

 in the first instance, on the creature's power of eliminating car- 

 bonic acid and lime from the waters it inhabits, and, in the 

 second, of reproducing these materials in the shape of its 

 shell-substance. Unless we admit this explanation, it is diffi- 

 cult to see how we can escape the more serious dilemma of 

 having to assume that solid atoms of carbonate of lime are 

 merely passed mechanically through the animal's body, going 

 in at one side in the shape of solid atoms, and coming out at 

 the other in the shape of specially conformed shell-tissue. 

 And, be it observed, the same objection holds good as regards 

 the process by which the " consolidation " of the cellulose wall 

 — by carbonate of lime or silex, as the case may be — takes 

 place in the Protophyte ; for it is only so long as we consent 

 to be hoodwinked by a definition which cannot, under any 



* It shall be shown in a future paper that my views on the question of 

 nutrition have within the past six months been absolutely verified by the 

 independent observations of Messrs. W. H. Dallenger and J. Drysdale, 

 ' On the Life-history of the Monads.' The entire subject of the 

 nutrition of the Protozoa will then be fully entered into. Meanwhile I 

 may be permitted to observe that the very important researches of Dr. 

 Hooker and Mr. Darwin " On Carnivorous Plants " have demonstrated 

 the fallacy of the old established preconceived notions respecting the im- 

 mutability of the boundary-line which has been so vainly and arrogantly 

 drawn between the animal and the plant, based, as it was, almost wholly 

 on the mode of nutrition. 



t " On the Systematic Arrangement of the Rhizopoda," Natural His- 

 tory Review, no. 4, October 1861, p. 472. 



