662 RECORD OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



diminisliing in size. The sponge-wall seems to have consisted of 

 more than one layer of spicules. The spicules were probably originally 

 siliceous, but now they consist of iron pyrites. 



With regard to the systematic position of Protospongia, the oldest 

 known sponge, the author remarks that similar spicules similarly 

 arranged are to be met with in the Hexactinellidse, the absence of 

 one or two rays being not unusual in part of the spicules of true 

 Hexactinellids. As the spicules are free, he would refer the sponge 

 to Zittel's Lyssakina, which are nearly equivalent to Carter's Sarco- 

 hexactinellida. 



Protozoa. 



Butschli's Protozoa. — The first part of the second edition of the 

 first volume of Bronn's ' Klassen u. Ordnungen des Thier-Eeichs,' 

 which contains the Protozoa, has just appeared ; it is by Dr. O. 

 Uiitschli, of Heidelberg. The part contains only the commence- 

 ment of the account of the first division (class or subphylum) to 

 which the name Sarcodina is given ; the limits of the class are not 

 •quite the same as those proposed by Hertwig and Lesser, for, as here 

 defined, it consists of three subclasses, Ehizopoda, Heliozoa, and 

 Eadiolaria. The bibliography of the first of these recites 118 titles. 

 The four plates contain nearly 70 figures, of which most are taken 

 from the special communications of various authors. It is intended 

 to complete the subject in 12-15 parts, with 30 plates. 



Amcebiform and other new Foraminifera.* — Mr. H. J. Carter 

 describes some specimens dredged up from the Gulf of Manaar, between 

 Ceylon and the southern extremity of India. 



Under the head of Testamcebiformia — new group — (Char., amcebi- 

 form, testaceous) Mr. Carter says that hitherto almost exclusive atten- 

 tion has been given to the free Foraminifera, whose exquisitely varied 

 forms, although in many instances microscopic, have not unnaturally 

 proved as attractive as the frustules of the Diatomacete, so that it 

 has become an object of great search to find out a new form, 

 although it can hardly be seen by the unassisted eye. This to the 

 specialist is a matter of paramount importance, but to the biologist 

 one of insignificance compared with the less attractive and larger 

 forms, which tend to reveal the life-history and connections of the 

 class generally. 



For some time past he has anticipated the existence of amcebiform 

 Foraminifera, dififerentiated only by the peculiarity of their respective 

 pseudopodial expansions ; but of course this cannot be ascertained 

 except by minute and laborious examination of the living so-called 

 Bathyhius, which probably abounds with them after the manner of 

 fresh-water Ehizopods, forming a similar slime to that which may 

 often be observed over the bottom of stagnant (i. e. still) fresh-water 

 pools. He was not, however, prepared to find that some of these 

 ever-changing forms were stereotyped as it were by the permanent 

 secretion of a calcareous test, until the specimens from the Gulf of 

 Manaar came under his notice, when he observed two well-characterized 



* ' Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist.,' v. (1880) p. 437. 



