SERIES OF FORMS IN SPONGES. 



93 



organisms which secrete the most deHcate calcareous 

 shells, there could be no question of " species," but only 

 of " series of forms." P^orms which the systematists 

 had reduced to different genera and families, he be- 

 held developing themselves from one another. These 

 Foraminifera are, however, so simple in structure, the 

 history of their individual evolution or Ontogenesis is, 

 as yet, so little known; they contribute so Httle micro- 

 scopic detail, which might formulate the law of transmu- 

 tation of species, that the champions of persistency of 

 species might still seek refuge in the assertion that 

 Carpenter's series of forms are mere varieties, and 

 only prove that the true " species " have not yet been 

 found. 



We may now turn with advantage to the class of the 

 Spongiadae, the importance of which in the question of 

 species I was the first to point out.^^ With them, as I 

 summed up my researches, it is not as with the Forami- 

 nifera, merely an affair of the general habit of the form, 

 of the variable grouping of the chamber systems ; but the 

 variability exists still more specially in the microscopic 

 detail than in the coarser constituents. In the Forami- 

 nifera we may speak of microscopic forms, but not prop- 

 erly of microscopic constituents. But in the sponges 

 we discern the transformation of the finer morphological 

 constituents, the rudimentary organs, and we thereby 

 gain an insight into the mutability of the whole. In this 

 respect the calcareous sponges are somewhat differently 

 circumstanced from the rest, and from the silicious 

 sponges in particular. In the former, the variability of 

 the microscopic parts is limited to a smaller circle of 

 forms, whereas the habit of the series of individuals is 



