20 THE FORAMINIFERA 



characterised by the dwarfed growths of erodmms and other sea- 

 loving plants in exposed places ; beyond these flats was a penin- 

 sula or miniature promontory, surrounded by a far-spreading debris 

 of disintegrated rock which the sea, washing it on both sides, had 

 detached from its low cliffs, and at a radius of a quarter of a mile 

 had deposited in a circle from its point. Descending to a stream 

 on the right or north side of the isthmus, he collected a little from 

 the bay on that side, and following the peninsula, where the afore- 

 said stream, becoming shallow, poured over the sand, he got Sertu- 

 larias and seaweeds, and added these to his store, thinking some 

 Foraminifera might be parasitic or adhering to them. 



He examined the boulders and rocks around the peninsula, but 

 the stones were too coarse, or the exposure to the breakers too 

 great, for much fine sand to lodge among them, so that but little 

 was added to the canvas-bag in a mile or more of very uneven 

 walking. 



Scrapings, however, were taken from every promising spot, of 

 which there were several nearer Salthill. The shore is here 

 indented by numerous little coves, separated by rocky or stony 

 spurs, which cut up the margin of the shore from the peninsula to 

 Salthill. 



These inlets afford shelter for the accumulation of fine sand. 

 On one of them was a mass of growing vegetation, from the tangled 

 roots of which also sand was taken. He could not determine 

 the name of the plant : it was growing in the sand, where it is 

 covered by every tide. On approaching Salthill, the inlets 

 were rich in floated Foraminifera about high-water mark, so that 

 when he arrived there his bags were heavy with wet sand. 



What was in that load, it is the purpose of this paper to unfold 

 so far as Foraminifera are concerned. And now arises the ques- 

 tion, "What are Foraminifera ?" Foraminifera are " Reticularian 

 Rhizopoda," having shells or tests. They are, in fact, minute 

 masses of protoplasm, which secrete or excrete a stony cell-wall, 

 which is usually either perforated with minute holes — foramina, or 

 having one or more larger apertures — through which the pro- 

 toplasm, in long, filamentous threads, called pseudopodia, often 

 many times the length of the shell, protrudes itself. These 

 pseudopodia inosculate by uniting whenever they meet or cross 



