274 Transactions of the Society. 



we now see no reason for supposing that C. diffusa is ever other 

 than a free-growing organism. 



Cornuspira diffusa is probably widely distributed in moderately 

 deep water, on muddy bottoms, to which it appears to be every- 

 wliere confined. In addition to the few specimens first seen in 

 Mr. Joseph Wright's dredging from Kenmare Eiver, Co. Kerry, 

 (40 fathoms), we have met with occasional fragments of small 

 size in dredgings from the area of the Clare Island (Co. Mayo) 

 Survey, and in a shore sand from Llanfihangel-y-Traethau, in Wales. 



Eound the Scottish coast it is of wider distribution, occurring 

 more or less frequently at many ' Goldseeker ' stations round the 

 west coast, and in Orkney and Shetland. But the species reaches 

 its greatest development both as regard size and abundance in the 

 fine ooze which covers the bottom in the central area of the Scottish 

 North Sea. At some of these stations fragments of all shapes and 

 sizes are of frequent occurrence, notably at Station xliA (Lat. 56° 

 48' N., Long. 1° 19' E.), 94 metres, where the specimens were particu- 

 larly abundant. Eemarkablv fine specimens were also obtained at 

 the" Huxley " Station 25 (56° 34' X. 3° 53' E.), in 37 fathoms to the 

 south of the Inner Shoal and Great Fisher Bank in the North Sea. 

 The organism, however, is so extremely fragile, that Earland did 

 not succeed in obtaining a single perfect specimen, although at 

 various times he has passed several entire dredgings from this 

 station through a fine sieve immediately after they were taken. 

 The shells were often seen in a practically complete condition in 

 the sieve, but invariably separated into fragments similar to those 

 figured, either by their own weight when deprived of the supporting 

 ooze, or as soon as an attempt was made to raise them with a 

 brush. 



There can be no doubt that the organism when undisturbed is 

 .capable of ramifying and spreading over the surface of the ooze, 

 and that it may attain a very much greater size than any of the 

 separate fragments recovered. The protoplasm is abundant, and of 

 a dark olive tint. 



The species is not, in our opinion, a primitive . condition of 

 Cornus2oira, as might at first sight seem probable, but rather a 

 degenerate and pauperate form. Its affinities are with C, strioUita 

 Brady,* which itself may be regarded as an abnormally developed 

 and evolute condition of the more abundant C. foliacea Philippi sp. 

 G. striolata is best known from the deep water of the cold area of 

 the Shetland Faroe channel, where it attains a gigantic size (fig. 36). 

 Many specimens have been taken approaching 25 mm. in length, and 

 some exceeding those dimensions. As the species extends from the 

 deep and very cold (— 1-04° C.) water of this area into the 

 shallower North Sea, it becomes very different in size and appear- 



* Foram. ' Challenger,' 1884, p. 202, pi. cxiii. figs. 18, 19. 



