82 Transactions of the Society, 



section, which he pL^ces in his " XY™® Etage, Kimmeridgien." ^ 

 The fossil forms therefcjre, which are white at Esnandes and 

 yellow or blue at Chatelaillon, may for our purposes be all 

 described, as I have said supra, as Corallian (Upper Jurassic). 

 The shore at Chatelaillon is (see note 1, p. 12) a broad expanse of 

 sharp sand, ideal for a bathing resort," strewn heie and there with 

 patches of MoUuscan debris from which I made the gatherings 

 which are analysed in this paper. The only rivers which find 

 their way to the coast near either locality arrive by way of the 

 alluvial plains from rocky watersheds of volcanic origin, so that 

 we may eliminate the possibility of any of the fossil forms being 

 derived from strata other than those which we have indicated. 



A glance over the tabular list hereto appended will remind us 

 of many observations which I have had occasion to make in the 

 foregoing pages, and will emphasize the statement that d'Orbigny 

 was prone to generalize on sucli insufficient material that his 

 observations upon tlie geographical distril)ution of Foraminifera 

 are entirely fallacious and misleading. The occurrence of no less 

 than twenty-four species of the genus Lagena representing all the 

 most strikingly differentiated general types, makes us marvel at 

 his unconsciousness of the existence of the genus until 1839 ; and 

 the tact that he never recorded any species of Bolivina until lie 

 named the genus from Bolivia, also in 1839, is shoAvn to be no 

 less remarkable. But what is more extraordinary still is that he 

 made no home-record, so to speak, of Nonionina dcpressula, which, 

 as might be expected upon such a shore, constitutes (as I have 

 been at the pains to ascertain) 99 9 p.c. of the Foraminifera of the 

 Esnandes shore-sand and mud-Hats. His warmer interest was clearly 

 concentrated upon tlio exotic material which reached him from all 

 over the world; he may be said to have carried the axiom "onme 

 ignotum pro raagnifico " to its ultimate expression. The virtual 

 non-appearance of any arenaceous, adherent forms was to be 

 expected at Esnandes, but one would have ex])ected them to be 

 present in the detached condition at Chatelaillon, washed in from 

 the oyster-beds which flourish there as on all parts of this south 

 lUscayan coast. The wealtli of algpe in the neighbourhood would 

 lead one to look for Niibccularia lucifnga, of which we have only 

 found a single specimen. These idiosyncrasies of facies are 

 however to be met with in deposits and shore-sands from all over 

 the world. 



Plate XII represents a group of the typical Foraminifera of 

 the shore-sand and mud-flats of Esnandes ; Plate XIII, a similar 

 group from the shore-sand of Chatelaillon. 



' XIV., vol. ii., pp. 554-7. 



- It may be useful to remark, in case auy of my readers should propose to 

 visit this coast, that if he asks for a " Billet de Bains de Mer " at the I\IoDtpar- 

 nas?e Station in Paris, he will get a return ticket for ahovit half the normal rate, 

 which is comparatively expensive. 



