267 
ON THE RADIOLARIA AS AN ORDER OF THE 
PROTOZOA. 
By Sttrgeox-Ma j or G. 0. WALLICH, M.D., &c. 
[PLATE Vi.] 
T HE publication by Mr. St. George Mivart of an elaborate 
memoir on the Radiolaria* is undoubtedly an event in the 
annals of biological literature. Mr. Mivart’s reputation as an 
earnest thinker and accomplished writer, his official position 
in an illustrious society devoted to botany and zoology, and 
his well-known antagonism to the 6C scientific materialism ” 
ascribed by him to a certain school of German and also of 
British naturalists, are facts eminently calculated to add force 
and authority to observations emanating from such a quarter. 
But, on the other hand, they are facts in like manner calculated 
materially to enhance the difficulty of combating any such obser- 
vations, the accuracy of which it may become necessary to impugn. 
Unfortunately, on the present occasion, Mr. Mivart has not 
been engaged in chronicling researches carried on by himself ; 
for, if report speaks correctly, he has never yet seen in the living 
or even the recent condition (from which alone trustworthy 
results can be seemed) the singularly beautiful but fragile 
organisms whose biological relations he has so laudably, if not 
altogether successfully, undertaken to expound. 
It is true that Mr. Mivart acknowledges at the outset that 
“ his aim has been to furnish a digest and resume of the most 
recent researches on the Radiolaria,” and equally true that from 
first to last he has so faithfully adhered to his intention as not 
to have made any attempt whatever to support his inferences,, 
professedly original and comprehensive as these often are, by a 
single personally attested observation. The bulk of his memoir 
is in reality a resume of Professor Haeckel’s researches on the 
subject, backed up herfe and there by supplementary facts 
* “ Notes touching Recent Researches on the Radiolaria/’ By St. George 
Mivart, Zoological Secretary, Linnean Society. The “ Journal of the Linnean 
Society,” Yol. xiv., No. 74, May, 1878. 
