FORAMINIFERA FROM THE NORTH COAST OF JAMAICA. 



By Joseph A. Cushman, 



Of the Boston Society of Natural History. 



While in Jamaica in February and March, 1912, with the Carnegie 

 Institution Expedition under Dr. Alfred G. Mayor, I took advantage 

 of spare moments to collect foraminiferal material. There is very 

 little actually known about the shallow-water foraminifera of the 

 West Indies. D'Orbigny's Monograph of the Foraminifera of the 

 Shore Sands of Cuba included other West Indian shore sands as well. 1 

 Flint recorded a few species from Puerto Rico. 2 Most of the other 

 records are from deeper waters. 



In working over this Jamaican material it was evident that the 

 species fitted those described in d'Orbigny's Cuban Monograph much 

 better than any others. This same fact I had also observed in 

 working out the later tertiary material of the West Indies. Therefore, 

 as d'Orbigny had Jamaican specimens in his material, it has seemed 

 desirable to make rather close comparisons of the Jamaican material 

 with the figures and descriptions of the Cuban Monograph. The 

 result has been rather surprising in the accuracy with which most 

 of the material fits these descriptions and figures. Many of d'Or- 

 bigny's species have been allowed to lapse and are not referred to 

 in the literature since their original publication in 1839; others have 

 been placed in the synonymy of other species; and still others are 

 in good usage for tropical species. If the synonymy and the original 

 figures and descriptions of many species are carefully studied it will 

 be apparent that d'Orbigny's species in many cases do not deserve 

 the fate of synonyms. Others now in good use, based on Brady's 

 use of them in the Challenger Report, are used for entirely different 

 things from those of the originals. 1 have, therefore, in the present 

 paper tried to reconcile the Jamaican material with d'Orbigny's 

 species and have tried to indicate the results. 



In this connection the following quotation from the excellent work 

 of Heron-Allen. 3 in regard to the Cuban Monograph may not be out 

 of place: 



Ramon de la Sagra had intrusted d'Orbigny with the arrangement of the zoological 

 portion of his History of Cuba, and among the material was a small quantity of sand, 



J D'Orbigny, in De la Sagra, Hist. Fis. Pol. Nat. Cuba, 1839, "Foraminiferes." 

 » Bulletin U. S. Fish Commission, 1900, pp. 415-416. 



» Alcide d'Orbigny, His Life and His Work, Journal Microscopical Society, 1917, pp. 1-105, pis. 1-13 

 pp. 44,45). 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum. Vol. 59-No. 2360. 



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