80 Transactions of the Society. 



identical, altbougli d'Orbiguy's species is only represented by a 

 single water-worn individual, wbereas the Kerimba dredgings have 

 furnished us with two or three distinct stages of growth, or 

 possil)ly species, of the genus. Some are spherical and relatively 

 smooth, others are oval and coarsely papillate. D'Orbiguy's 

 type-specimen is of the latter kind. We have now also identified 

 specimens of the organism from Cebu, Philippine Islands (45 fms.), 

 and the Java Sea (50 fms.), so that it would appear to be widely 

 distributed. Quite recently Joseph Wright of Belfast has found 

 specimens of the form in sands from Mauritius, both of tlie round 

 and oval papillate types. The exact affinities of the form are, 

 however, still very obscure, and, pending further investigation and 

 the discovery of further specimens, we merely recorded it under 

 d'Orbigny's original name in our Table of Species and Varieties in 

 the Kerimba Monograpli. It will almost certainly require the 

 establishment of a new genus, if not of a new sub-family. 



XVII. — The Fokaminifera of the Biscayan Coast of France 

 IN THE Neighbourhood of La Eochelle. 



In the opening section I have spoken of Esnandes, and in a 

 subsequent note (p. 12) I have given some details upon the town 

 of Chatelaillon. In all d'Orbigny's works he refers so frequently 

 to the palaeontology of these two districts that it is clear that he 

 took full advantage of his propinquity to the latter, and to his 

 residence in the former, to make a very extensive and minute 

 examination of the geological strata which occur at both. It is 

 therefore not a little remarkable that whilst out of the wealth of 

 recent Foraminifera of the shores he only gave the district as the 

 liabitat of two species of Polymorphina (see ante, p. 11), from the 

 wealth of fossil forms which must indubitably occur in the beds 

 at ])oth places he recorded no forms at all.^ We have not 

 examined these beds for Foraminifera, but, as will presently be 

 seen, many fossil forms derived from them occur, as might be 

 expected, in the shore-sands of the adjacent coasts. 



It seemed to me that an examination of the earliest recent 

 material to which d'Orbigny had access could not fail to possess 

 a highly specialized interest for the Ehizopodist, and I therefore 

 made a sufficient gathering of material from the two places in the 

 spring of 1914. 



The most placidly functional lord of the most unimpressionable 



' Madame Henri d'Orbigny tells ,me that in a volume of early sketches by 

 Alcide d'Orbigny now in her possession there are six pages inscribed " Poramini- 

 f^res fossiles de Grignon, Esnandes, Marsilly — Coquilies libres."' It will be 

 remembered that d'Orbigny assumed a biological distinction between free and 

 attached species (see p. 23). I have not at present been able to inspect these 

 drawings. 



