THE 



VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGEK. 



ZOOLOGY. 



REPORT on the specimens of the Genus Orbitolites collected by H.M.S. 

 Challenger during the years 1873-1876. By William B. Carpenter, 

 C.B., M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S. ; Corresponding Member 

 of the Institute of France, of the Konigl. Baier. Akademie der 

 Wissenschaften zu Miinchen, of the American Philosophical 

 Society, &c., &c. 



INTEODUCTION. 



Thirty-six years ago, when engaged in the study of the Microscopic structure of the 

 calcareous skeletons of the lower Invertebrata, I received from my friend Prof. Edward 

 Forbes some small discoidal bodies, which had been dredged-up in considerable abundance 

 on the coast of Australia by Mr. J. Beete Jukes, whilst holding the post of Naturalist in 

 H. M. surveying ship "Fly," between 1842 and 1846, with the information that these 

 disks were probably identical with those which had been collected by MM. Quoy and 

 Gaimardin the same locality during the voyage of the " Astrolabe," and described by them 

 in the " Zoology " of that voyage, under the generic designation Marginopora. I could 

 not, however, find any mention of this genus, either in the text or in the plates of their 

 great work ; but on consulting the Manuel de I'Actinologie of M. de Blainville, I found 

 it there described (p. 412), on information received from MM. Quoy and Gaimard, in 

 immediate sequence to the genus Orbitolites, — both genera being placed by De Blainville, 

 though with hesitation, among his " Polypiers." Having examined, in the Paris Museum, 

 the original specimens on which the genus was founded, I at once saw that Mr. Jukes's 

 disks belonged to the same type, though with some modifications of detail ; and I saw also 



(ZOOL. CHALL. EXP. PART XXI. 1883.) X 1 



