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BEFORE THE DAWN OF ART 281 
gravity, they will lie at the same level in the ooze; 
and so it may be in some cases. But that this is 
not all is proved by individuals which make the 
bulk of the shell of microscopic quartz grains, but 
interpolate at intervals little gems of garnet, 
magnetite, and perhaps topaz. 
Speaking of a Foraminifer common on the rocks 
of the Mixon Beacon, a couple of miles out to sea 
from the point of Selsey Bill, Mr. Heron-Allen 
writes: “Among the shells of this species, the 
majority of which are neatly constructed in the 
ordinary way, of very small quartz grains, built 
together with a brilliantly white or deeply ferrugi- 
nous cement (which gives a very distinctive color- 
ing to the shells), frequent specimens are found 
which have selected and built into their shells rela- 
tively large fragments of these gem materials, and 
though even I would shrink from suggesting the in- 
clusion among the higher qualities of Foraminiferal 
protoplasm of an ‘ esthetic sense,’ the selection of 
these grains of markedly higher specific gravity by a 
very restricted proportion of the animals of this 
species seems to me to be exceedingly significant. It 
affords a parallel to the instances of selection, by dif- 
ferent species living on the same bottom, and sur- 
rounded by the same materials, of entirely different 
elements, to which Lister has called attention.” In 
contrast to a shell of quartz grains we may mention 
that of a species of Reophax—a fragile many- 
chambered tube built of infinitesimally small flakes 
of mica, joined at their extreme margins by chitinous 
