182 



Messrs. W. K. Parker and T. R. Jones on the 



This is an Alveolina, an opake-shelled Foraminifer, which, in 

 its close relation to Orbiculina or Orbitolites, may be said to 

 represent a small thick Orbiculina drawn out transversely at its 

 umbilici, and thus bears the same relation to its congeners that 

 Fusulina does to Nonionina. 



Dr. Carpenter (op. cit. p. 552, pi. 28. figs. 23, 24, and pi. 29. 

 figs. 4-9) has so well described the structure of a recent Alveo- 

 lina illustrative of the species to which var. a (prolate spheroid) 

 must be referred as a melon -shaped, and var. /3 (oblate spheroid) 

 as a spheroidal variety, that we need merely refer to his memoir, 

 where a historical account of the species is also given. The 

 oldest specific name on record for Alveolina is A. Melo, which 

 may well pass as the type. A. Boscii is a well-developed form, 

 and A. Quoyii is a fine elongate variety, rather clubbed at 

 the ends, which attains a large size (f inch in length) in Fiji, 

 and is also large in Australia, where, with it, Orbitolites arrives 

 at its greatest development, a similar association to that 

 obtaining in the Eocene deposit of Grignon. In India, Egypt, 

 Austria, Spain, and elsewhere, Alveolince occur fossil of many 

 sizes, and of various shapes, from that of a shot to a spindle, 

 or from that of a melon to a cucumber. They abound in rocks 

 of the Nummulitic period. The largest we have seen was col- 

 lected in Persia by the late Mr. W. K. Loftus, and is 3 inches 

 long, and \\ inch in diameter ! 



* This is the Lippistes Cornu of Montfort, and probably the Separatist 

 Grayi of Adams. 



