336 . 
BE VIEWS. 
other ; so that, on comparing notes, we found that we had between us pretty 
thoroughly investigated the entire group. Hence I was led to propose to the 
Council of the Ray Society an enlargement of my original plan, so as to include the 
results of my friends’ labours, and to render the whole an expression of our joint 
views. This I did in the expectation that we might associate ourselves together in 
such a manner that whilst the general plan and a part of the details of its working 
out would rest with me, a large share in the execution would he taken 
by my coadjutors. We soon found, hoivever, that it would be more con¬ 
ducive both to unity of design and to completeness of effect for the whole to 
be wrought out by myself; and it has been by the necessity which thence arose 
for my personal study of many types with which I was previously but little or not 
at all acquainted, that the delay in the production of the work has for the most part 
been occasioned. The materials for this study have been most liberally supplied to 
me by Messrs. Parker and Rupert Jones ; and as to many types which they had 
previously made the object of special researches (such as the Milioline , Nodosarine, 
Textularine, and Rotaline groups), I have found that I had nothing to do but to 
accept their well-considered and satisfactory conclusions. In certain other cases, 
especially in regard to the genus Dactylopora, and to that collection of forms which 
they had described under the generic designation OrMtoliua (here referred to the 
genera Tinoporus and Patellwa), my own investigation of the materials which they 
have placed in my hands has led to results in some respects different from those 
which they had published ; but as they have seen reason to accept my modifications, 
the accounts of those types here given may be regarded as not less theirs than mine. 
In regard to the genus Nuvimulina, the most important of all Foraminifera in a 
geological point of view, we have found ourselves in complete accordance as to the 
impossibility of drawing definite lines of demarcation between its reputed species ; 
my researches on the varietal forms of the closely related genus Operculina having 
led me to conclusions as to the variability of all the differential characters on which 
reliance had been placed, precisely corresponding with those at which Messrs. Parker 
and Rupert Jones had arrived from a careful comparative study of the various forms 
of Nummulina proper. I have endeavoured, as each genus came successively under 
review, to specify what share in the special investigation of its character is due to 
my coadjutors, and what has been more particularly my own ; where no such 
intimation is given, we may be regarded as jointly responsible.”—lb. p. vi. 
In this manner all the Foraminifera known to these three inves¬ 
tigators have been reduced to about fifty-two separate genera, 
included by Dr. Carpenter under six families and two sub-orders. 
To the various names of the families and sub-orders given in the 
accompanying table, we have ventured to append approximate 
definitions: — 
FORAMINIFERA. 
Sub-order 1. IMPERFORATA. 
Shell varying in texture, furnished with a single or multiple orifice on its 
apertural plane, but otherwise imperforate. Pseudopodia only pro- 
trusible from the anterior region of the body. 
Family I. G-eomida. —Shell wanting, or replaced by a single- 
chambered membranous test. 
Grenus 1. Lieberkuhnia. 
2. Grromia. 
Genus 3. Lagynis. 
Family II. Miliolida. — Shell calcareous, porcellanous, im¬ 
perforate. 
