300 DISCOVERY REPORTS 



we are informed, carried out about forty years ago by a retired naval officer, attached to 

 the Musee d'Histoire Naturelle, and it is evident that he had some knowledge, however 

 slight, of Foraminifera. The writing on the boards, however, is in different hands, indi- 

 cating that various curators or workers, at various times, have overhauled the collections. 

 It is known also that both Terquem and Schlumberger had unrestrained access to the 

 collections and material deposited in the Museum by d'Orbigny. 



The cement used to fasten the tubes is perishable — often indeed perished — and is 

 very friable, with the result that scores of the tubes are at present lying separated from 

 scores of boards to which they may, or may not, have been originally fastened. There is 

 some evidence that unknown individuals have attempted, and not always with success, 

 to match tubes against boards, guided apparently only by a comparison of the specimens 

 with the plates to be found in d'Orbigny 's various monographs. Moreover, in many 

 cases, even where the specimens are the original Types, they have perished by degenera- 

 tion of the glass, decomposition of the calcareous shell by fungoid outgrowths, or by the 

 alternate expansion and contraction of the hygroscopic gum above referred to. Such 

 Types as these are absolutely useless for purposes of comparison, and reliance will have 

 to rest upon identification with d'Orbigny's figures. 



By courtesy of Prof. Marcellin Boule, we have been privileged to examine, jointly, a 

 considerable selection of such Types as are still recognizable as Foraminifera, at greater 

 leisure in the Natural History Museum in London, and the results of this closer examina- 

 tion will appear in the notes appended to the individual species. We were also entrusted 

 with eleven small bottles containing what is left of d'Orbigny's material, in which it has 

 been satisfactory to find a considerable number of Topo-types, but we were warned that 

 they had been already a good deal overhauled by Terquem and Schlumberger, and our 

 examination of these arouses the suspicion that the contents of some of the bottles have 

 become mixed, and contaminated with that of others. 



Out of the eighty-one Types recorded in d'Orbigny's monograph, thirty-one are 

 missing (as such). Of the fifty remaining Types, many are entirely destroyed by the 

 agencies already mentioned. 



Since d'Orbigny, very little work has been published on the Foraminifera of the 

 Falkland Area. H.M.S. 'Challenger', on the homeward voyage, ran a line of stations 

 Nos .313-17 from Magellan Straits through the islands which may be briefly summarized : 



St. 313. Jan. 20, 1876. 52° 20' S, 67° 39' W. 55 fms. Coarse sand. 



This is very close to the position of our station WS 90. Brady (1884, FC, p. 106) writes : "Very 

 muddy sand nearly barren of Foraminifera, contains only a few Miliolinae, Truncatidmae, Discor- 

 biiiae and other shallow-water forms in starved condition". In the "Summary", p. 1172, there is a 

 list of thirteen species of Foraminifera found at this station. They are all on our list for WS 90 

 except Biloculina ringejis which was probably B. globulus as recorded by us. 



St. 314. Jan. 21, 1876. 51° 35' S, 65° 39' W. 70 fms. Coarse sand. 



Not far from our station WS 92. No records of the Foraminifera appear either in the " Summary " 

 or in Brady. 

 St. 314 A. Jan. 22, 1876. 51° 24' S, 61° 46' W. 1 10 fms. Hard ground. 



No material. 



