Mr. W. Clark on the recent Foraminifera. ]69 



these minute objects, I can truly say that this idea is wholly 

 without foundation if the pursuit is properly conducted, and that, 

 on the contrary, it is materially strengthened by the use of pro- 

 perly adapted glasses even of high powers ; and in proof I state 

 that twenty years ago I used spectacles, but the continued and 

 daily examination of these minutiae has so greatly increased the 

 power of vision, that I now read the smallest type without diffi- 

 culty and without aid. The great point to be attended to is not 

 to use a power that in the least exceeds the necessity, not to 

 continue the exercise of vision too long, and never by artificial 

 light, and to reserve the high powers of certain lenses and the 

 microscope for important investigations of very moderate conti- 

 nuance : the really observant eye seizes at a glance the intelli- 

 gence required, whilst strained, poring, and long optical exertions 

 are delusive and unsatisfactory, and produce those fanciful ima- 

 ginations of objects which have really no existence. The proper 

 time for research after microscopic objects is for one hour after 

 breakfast, when we are in the fittest state for exertion. 



The very minute Foraminifera are always in fine sand, and the 

 best way to find them is to take from the parcel of sand only as 

 much as will lie on the point of a very small penknife blade, 

 spreading it by a slender-pointed cedar stick on a large card, 

 covered with dull black paper, when, with a proper lens, the 

 objects by their symmetry and beauty are at once distinguished, 

 and gathered up by a sable brush into proper receptacles. This 

 apparently slow but sure mode of finding these minutiae by 

 purely optical exertions will produce a greater supply than by 

 the wholesale immersion of sand in water and the resulting 

 collection of a few buoyant objects ; for after all that can be done 

 by this mode, the sand, when abandoned, will then produce three 

 times the number that have been acquired otherwise. In the 

 search of shells of one-tenth inch diameter, perhaps the plan of 

 immersion may succeed well. 



Having disposed of two of the greatest drawbacks in the in- 

 vestigation of the Foraminifera, it only remains, as concisely as 

 possible, to conclude the present paper by some remarks illus- 

 trative of my views in being anxious to rescue this branch of 

 natural history from its present, I may say, retrograde position, 

 as regards the knowledge of the animal. 



The field of the British testaceous mollusca has been for many 

 years so sedulously cultivated, that although its products are not 

 yet exhausted, they have nevertheless become so much dimi- 

 nished, as is proved by the increasing far-betweens in the disco- 

 very of new species, as to render it almost a matter of necessity 

 to look out for " fresh woods and pastures new ; " and where 

 can we find a more delightful resource, partaking so much of the 



