378 Reviews — Sherborn's Foraminifera. 



and in past times it formed sboals and banks of extensive sea-beds, 

 wbicb have remained more or less consolidated as recognizable 

 limestones among the various strata constituting the accessible 

 parts of the Earth's crust. These microzoa are chiefly Foraminifei-a, 

 of which we have heard and read much since the Expedition for the 

 arrangement of the Atlantic Cable was reported in the Newspapers, 

 and the subsequent scientific exploration of the "Challenger" was 

 explained in various ways. For a century and more, however, 

 before that period, scientists had known much of both the deep-sea 

 life and the shore-life of organisms similar to what the deep-dredging 

 brought up. Naturalists had already devoted labour and thought to 

 the elucidation of these interesting objects ; and descriptions with, 

 illustrations, often good, though rarely perfect, had accumulated in 

 memoirs and books on the several kinds, genei'a, and species, of the 

 Foraminifera. These little creatures were easily mistaken one for 

 another, within certain limits of form and structure ; hence names 

 for them multiplied without clear distinctions, just as different 

 observers in many cases took up really similar individuals and 

 treated them with their own notions and new names. Especially 

 this occurred with fossil forms, which offered a fascinating study, but 

 required a previous knowledge of the results of former observations. 

 To meet this difficulty, bibliographic lists had been appended to 

 some of the best memoirs on the Foraminifera ; but a far more 

 exact catalogue of the authors and their works was supplied in 1888 

 Dy Mr. C. D. Sherborn ; and was duly noticed in the Geological 

 Magazine for January, 1889, pp. 34, 35. Feeling that still more 

 was required to enable workers to see through this crowd of writers 

 and manifold confusion of creatures, one and the same often bearing 

 several different names, Mr. Sherborn continued to devote time 

 and labour to an exhaustive bibliography, not only of the writers, 

 but of every generic and specific name applied to tlie Foraminifera, 

 recent and fossil. In 1889 the Smithsonian Institution, at Wash- 

 ington, D.C., U.S.A., generously undertook the publication of this 

 enormous catalogue, or " Index to the Genera and Species of Fora- 

 minifera " ; and the first half of this grand work, containing 10,000 

 names (from A to Non.), in 240 pages 8vo., dated "November, 1893," 

 has been printed and published in a form befitting the liberality of 

 that excellent and highly useful scientific Institution. Thanks to 

 Mr. Sherborn's enthusiastic and painstaking labour, and his well- 

 tried experience in bibliographic work, we can now congratulate 

 Ehizopodists on having at hand a trustworthy guide through the 

 nomenclatorial labyrinth which has grown up, from about 1565 

 (when the Italian naturalists were beginning to notice the abundant 

 microzoa on their shores and in their strata) down to 1889. 



Thus both former and present students of the Foraminifera will 

 have the credit due to them fairly apportioned by priority ; and 

 many useful notes, falling in their right places in the Index, will 

 aid future workers in solving doubts and difficulties. These wonder- 

 fully elegant, or quaintly shelled, microzoa are carefully studied in 

 many countries ; and of late years much has been added to our know- 



