PREFACE 3 THE classical volume of Dr. W. B. Carpenter, written in conjunction with Professors Kitchen Parker and Rupert Jones, is still an exceedingly valuable book for workers in this special branch of study, for it contains the pioneer work of those authors on the morphology and microscopic shell structure of Foraminifera.1 The monographs of Drs. W. C. Williamson2 and H. B. Brady are also indispensable as works of reference. But these and others more recently published are voluminous and not always easily accessible to the student; whilst the increasingly large number of smaller works on the subject, written by Continental, English, and other authors, which have from time to time appeared in the various publications of Scientific Societies and in periodicals and journals, are quite outside the scope of the general student's reading.' 1 Introduction to the Study of the Foraminifera. Ray Society publication. London, 1862. 2 The Recent Foraminifera of Great Britain. Ray Society's publication. London, 1858. 3 Report on the Foraminifera: H.M.S. Challenger,' Zoology, vol. ix. 1884. 4 For the literature on Foraminifera to 1888 consult C. D. Sherborn's Bibliography of the Foraminifera, London, 1888, and the supplemental work, to 1898, by Paul Tutkowski, Cracow, 1898. Of late years also much attention has been directed to the elucidation of the life history of the Foraminifera and other groups of the Protozoa, whilst fresh discoveries concerning the geographical distribution of the fossil Foraminifera and their range in time have served to make our knowledge of this group more complete, and in some cases have disturbed the generally accepted ideas about the early, if not the actual primæval, forms of these persistent types of animal life. With a view, therefore, of meeting a demand which has arisen for a concise account of the Foraminifera, suited to the requirements of the student of Natural History and Palæontology, the following pages have been written. For friendly criticism of the earlier chapters of this book, and for valuable advice, I am much indebted to Professor G. B. Howes, LL.D., F.R.S. I also take this as a fitting opportunity for expressing my thanks to Professor J. W. Judd, C.B., LL.D., F.R.S., for the facilities granted from time to time, in the laboratory of the Royal College of Science, for working out and recording observations on various deposits, fossil and recent, without which some sections of this book would have been incomplete. F. CHAPMAN. January 1902. |