ANIMALS. 15 



Class FoRAMiNiFERA, D'Orbigny.^ 



Synonyms. Nautili et Orthoceeata, Auct. prior. 



PoLYTHALAMA, CEPHALOPODA, LamarcJi. 1812. Extrait de son Cours. 



— VEL MuLTiLOCULA, CEPHALOPODA, Latreille. 1825. Fam. nat. du Regne 



Animal. 

 Cellulacea et Polythalamacea, — Blainville. 1825. Manuel de Malacol. 



AsiPHONOiDEA, Cephalopoda, BeMaan. 1825. Monograph. Ammonit. 

 FoRAMiNiFERA, — D'Orfitjrwy. 1825. Annal. dcs Sciences nat.,tom. vii, 1826.^ 



— — Cuvier. 1828. Regne Animal., edit. nouv. 



SYMPLECTOMERES, "I ^ -n ■ y. r,r r A lie 



_, y Infusoires, Dujaratn. 1835. Aanal. des Sciences nat., sec. ser. 



Rhizopodss, J 



Polythalamia, Bryozoa, Ehrenberg. 1838. Abliand. der Akad. Berl. 



FoRAMiNij; BRES, " entreles Echinodcrms et les Polypiers," IfOrhigny. 1846. Foraminif. 



foss. Vienne. 

 FORAMINIFERA, " immediately abovc the Porifera," WiUiamson. 1849. Trans. Microscop. 



Soc, vol. ii. 



A group of minute, shelled animals, belonging to the sub-kingdom Acrita ; marine, 

 inhabiting sea weeds and the sea bottom ; generally free, but sometimes attached to 

 shells, corals, &c. 



Animal gelatinous,^ occupying a calcareous shell, which is formed of a succession 

 of cells or chambers, arranged in a straight, spiral, or agglomerated manner. The 

 cells communicate one with another either by one or more apertures,* or by a narrow 

 neck or tube, through which the animal matter is continued from cell to cell.^ The 

 cells are either separate from each other, or more or less envelope one another. The 

 later cells are progressively larger than the earlier cells. The shell is generally 

 perforated with foramina^ for the passage of retractile filaments (pseudopodia). 



The occurrence of Foraminifera in the Permian Formation not having hitherto been 



1 By Mr. T. Rupert Jones. 



2 M. d'Orbign/s researches in the natural history of this group were commenced in 1819. The paper 

 containing his Tableau des Cephalopodes was read in 1825, and published in the Ann. Sc. nat. for 1826. 



^ Like the substance of Hydra. The presence of a stomach is doubtful. 



* Hence the appellation " Foraminifera." 



* Each new articulation of the animal being produced by gemmiparous generation from the aperture at 

 the extremity of the preceding cell, and each cell being a repetition of the former cells, the character of the 

 connexion between the cells is shown by the external orifice of the last cell. 



^ With regard to the perforated appearance of many of the Foraminifera, especially the hyaline species, 

 I would observe that the apparent apertures, as shown by transmitted light, are really, when seen by 

 reflected light, merely punctations or thinned doubly-concave spaces in the shell. In the investing coats 

 of the Nummulite, which appear to be perforated with minute tubules, the separate flakes, when favorably 

 mounted, are seen to be imperforate, but bearing innumerable and scarcely-separated transparent spots ; 

 and these, when the coats are arranged one on another, are placed in so regular an order from within out- 

 wards, that in an oblique section, fine transparent lines , resulting therefrom give the whole shell the 



