1397] DISTRIBUTION OF PELAGIC FORAMINIFERA 19 
naturalists was called to the fact. It was Wyville Thomson's 
opinion, however, that these shells really came from the deep-sea 
deposits. It was the custom to sift and wash large quantities of 
the ooze procured in the dredge on the deck of the ship, and it 
was believed that some of the shells from the deck being washed 
overboard were subsequently caught by the tow-nets dragging astern. 
But the appearance of the shells taken in the tow-nets was so different 
from that of those procured from the bottom that I could not accept 
the above explanation. When the weather permitted, the tow-nets 
were dragged, at considerable distances from the ship, from a rowing 
boat, and Foraminifera were procured in abundance. By using a 
water-glass I was sometimes able to dip up a single specimen in a 
glass beaker without in any way touching it. When this specimen 
was taken on board the ship, and placed under the microscope, the 
whole sarcode of the animal was to be seen expanded outside of the 
shell, as represented in Fig. 1. When our attention was once 
directed to the subject, the pelagic Foraminifera were observed in 
almost every haul of the tow-net. Many of the Globigerinae, the 
Orbulinae, and the Hastigerinae are furnished with long spines, and 
when the animal is expanded the sarcode rests between the spines. 
In the Pulvinulinae, the Sphaeroidinae, and Pulleniae, which have 
no spines, the shell is frequently so hidden in the expanded yellow- 
coloured sarcode that it may escape observation. 
On the return of the Challenger Expedition, the late Mr 
H. B. Brady? and others pointed out that, if the Globigerinae were 
pelagic organisms, it was a most extraordinary circumstance that no 
naturalist had recorded them in any of the numerous tow-net 
gatherings about the British coasts. This, however, quite agreed 
with the experience of the Challenger naturalists. Whenever the 
ship entered a bay, an estuary, or, indeed, any coastal, waters, the 
pelagic Foraminifera became very rare or entirely disappeared from 
the nets, although they may have been abundant fifty miles from 
the coast.. I have never seen a single specimen in the tow-nets 
around the coasts of Scotland. In the 7Zriton and Knight Errant 
Expeditions pelagic Foraminifera were found in abundance in the 
Gulf Stream waters which flow up the Faroe Channel, although not a 
single specimen was observed in the Minch or North Sea waters. 
The pelagic Foraminifera are truly oceanic creatures, even more so 
than the Pteropoda: they are most abundant in true oceanic 
currents; where these currents flow directly towards a coast they 
may be borne close to the shore, but usually they are only to be met 
with far out at sea. 
From an examination of the large number of microscopic pre- 
1 Quart. Journ. Micro. Sci., vol. xix., N.S., p. 292. 1879; see also Zool. Chall. 
Exp., part xxii., pp. ix-xv. 1884. 
