198 MESSRS. BRADY, PARKER, AND JONES 
in resetting the nomenclature of the group, inasmuch as some previous endeavours in the 
direction of simplification have been misunderstood by Continental Rhizopodists, and 
conclusions which appear to us quite inconsequent have been adduced from them *. 
To most naturalists the question, whether, if two specimens have the same zoological 
characters, they should be regarded as belonging to the same species, without reference to 
their age, appears open to but one answer, namely that, unless proof of a positive nature 
be forthcoming of distinct and separate origin, specific determination must rest on zoolo- 
gical characters. Such proof is, in the very nature of things, impossible, and we are 
compelled to mould our views of the past on what we know of the present. 
. There are many well-marked species of Foraminifera now living in our seas, which 
are to be found in every marine microzoic deposit of Posttertiary and Tertiary date 
formed at corresponding depths. A published table of the distribution of living and 
fossil Foraminifera in the Mediterranean areat will afford us several illustrations of 
this fact. Many of the columns in the table referred to are by no means complete, 
having been compiled from limited supplies of material, and they represent sea-bottoms, 
present or past, widely differing in depth. Notwithstanding some discrepancies attribu- 
table to these causes, the twenty-five lists contained in the table, embracing the results of 
the examination of eleven Mediterranean soundings, and Tertiary deposits of various ages 
from fourteen localities in Italy (including Sicily), Spain, Malta, and the neighbourhood 
of Vienna, yield the following faets respecting some of the commoner species of Forami- 
nifera. 
Globigerina bulloides, D'Orb., occurs in 11 recent soundings and 10 Tertiary deposits. 
Discorbina globularis, D'Orb. . . . . 6 5 
—— rosacea, D'Orb. b =; $i 7 i re 
—— elegans, D'Orb. . . . . 8 tX e i, nod oe 
Planorbulina Haidingerii, D'Orb. a m 6 i AE 
Truncatulina lobatula, W. & J. . go. * 11 3 = 
Rotalia Beccarii, Linn. SiS = 11 = $$ 
orbicularis, D'Orb. T s 5 5 js res 
Polystomella crispa, Linn.. gus » 11 $x FE 
* This is scarcely the place to reply to a critique by our valued friend Dr. A. E. Reuss, of Vienna (see Verhand- 
lungen der k. k. geologischen Reichsanstalt, No. 7, 1808), which, though based upon a short paper by one of us, is 
chiefly directed against the views held by British naturalists in respeet to the subdivision of this group of Protozoa. 
We in no way undervalue the long and persevering labours of the learned German professor in the wide field of fossil 
Foraminifera; and though we cannot accept the principle which has led him to the use of a multitude of names for 
even the simplest types, we are equally far from expecting that he should now be inclined to adopt views which 
many others hold to be more consistent with natural laws, and more in accordance with the results of modern “ 
inquiry. It is unfortunately much easier to establish new “species ” to accommodate each little set of specimens 
having trifling morphological peculiarities, or derived from a different geological horizon, than to trace their connexion 
with better-defined forms already described; and this is precisely true of the Liassic specimens on the descriptions 
of which he animadverts. Nor can we agree with him that a few “ species " too many are less troublesome and 
mischievous than the bringing together of closely allied forms into one specific group which it may be found 
desirable subsequently for the convenience of classification to subdivide. | 
+ See a paper “ On the Rhizopodal Fauna of the Mediterranean, compared with that of the Italian and other 
Tertiary deposits, by T. Rupert Jones and W. K. Parker," Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xvi. p. 292: 1860. - E 
