[552] Doflein, Protozoenkunde, 1911, p. 263; “Was diese Art veranlässt in dieser Weise gelegentlich zu varüren, ist vorläufig noch ganz räthselhaft.”
[553] In the case of Globigerina, some fourteen species (out of a very much larger number of described forms) were allowed by Brady (in 1884) to be distinct; and this list has been, I believe, rather added to than diminished. But these so-called species depend for the most part on slight differences of degree, differences in the angle of the spiral, in the ratio of magnitude of the segments, or in their area of contact one with another. Moreover with the exception of one or two “dwarf” forms, said to be limited to Arctic and Antarctic waters, there is no principle of geographical distribution to be discerned amongst them. A species found fossil in New Britain turns up in the North Atlantic: a species described from the West Indies is rediscovered at the ice-barrier of the Antarctic.
[554] Dreyer, F., Principien der Gerüstbildung bei Rhizopoden, etc., Jen. Zeitschr. XXVI, pp. 204–468, 1892.
[555] A difficulty arises in the case of forms (like Peneroplis) where the young shell appears to be more complex than the old, the first formed portion being closely coiled while the later additions become straight and simple: “die biformen Arten verhalten sich, kurz gesagt. gerade umgekehrt als man nach dem biogenetischen Grundgesetz erwarten sollte,” Rhumbler, op. cit., p. 33 etc.
[556] “Das Festigkeitsprinzip als Movens der Weiterentwicklung ist zu interessant und für die Aufstellung meines Systems zu wichtig um die Frage unerörtert zu lassen, warum diese Bevorzügung der Festigkeit stattgefunden hat. Meiner Ansicht nach lautet die Antwort auf diese Frage einfach, weil die Foraminiferen meistens unter Verhältnissen leben, die ihre Schalen in hohem Grade der Gefahr des Zerbrechens aussetzen; es muss also eine fortwahrende Auslese des Festeren stattfinden,” Rhumbler, op. cit., p. 22.
[557] “Die Foraminiferen kiesige oder grobsandige Gebiete des Meeresbodens nicht lieben, u.s.w.”: where the last two words have no particular meaning, save only that (as M. Aurelius says) “of things that use to be, we say commonly that they love to be.”
[558] In regard to the Foraminifera, “die Palaeontologie lässt uns leider an Anfang der Stammesgeschichte fast gänzlich im Stiche,” Rhumbler, op. cit., p. 14.
[559] The evolutionist theory, as Bergson puts it, “consists above all in establishing relations of ideal kinship, and in maintaining that wherever there is this relation of, so to speak, logical affiliation between forms, there is also a relation of chronological succession between the species in which these forms are materialised”: Creative Evolution, 1911, p. 26. Cf. supra, p. 251.
[560] In the case of the ram’s horn, the assumption that the rings are annual is probably justified. In cattle they are much less conspicuous, but are sometimes well-marked in the cow; and in Sweden they are then called “calf-rings,” from a belief that they record the number of offspring. That is to say, the growth of the horn is supposed to be retarded during gestation, and to be accelerated after parturition, when superfluous nourishment seeks a new outlet. (Cf. Lönnberg, P.Z.S., p. 689, 1900.)
[561] Cf. Sir V. Brooke, On the Large Sheep of the Thian Shan, P.Z.S., p. 511, 1875.