1895. RESULTS OF ''CHALLENGER'' EXPEDITION. 33 



and beautiful plates remain a lasting memorial to the talents of Mr. 



A. T. Hollick, and it is not too much to say that they have never 



been excelled, though the exquisite iigures in the "Novara Reise," 



and in Vanden Broeck's little treatise on " Les Foraminiferes de la 



Barbade," are quite equal to them. 



The specimens of Orbitolites were entrusted to Dr. W. B. 



Carpenter, and enabled him to add largely to our knowledge of the 



structure and distribution of the four species, one of which his report 



describes for the first time. 



C. Davies Sherborn. 



Radiolaria. 



When, in August, 1876, I attended the meeting of the British 

 Association at Glasgow, and made the acquaintance of the naturalists 

 of the "Challenger," the quantity and scientific value of the 

 zoological collections there exhibited by them aroused my deepest 

 interest. But none of the material astonished me so greatly as the 

 wonderful Radiolarian ooze discovered by the "Challenger" in the 

 depths of the Pacific. For I saw hundreds of microscopic preparations, 



"^pel 



Fig. 4. — Hexanctstra quadricuspis, 

 Haeckel ; one of the Spu- 

 mellaria. Much enlarged. 



Fig. 5. — Lithoptera danvini, Haeckel; 

 one of the Acantharia. Much 

 enlarged. 



each of which, in the narrow space of a square centimetre, displayed 

 from twenty to fifty, or more, entirely new species of Radiolaria, 

 those delicate forms of that class of siliceous-shelled Rhizopoda, of 

 which, in my 1862 monograph, I had distinguished scarcely 200 hving 

 species. (PI. iii., Fig. i). Sir Wyville Thomson, who knew my work, 

 offered me the whole collection of Radiolaria to study and report on for 

 the " Challenger " volumes. In accepting this kind invitation, I hoped 

 to be able to complete the work in three or four years, but the 

 number of new and remarkable forms was so incredible, that their 

 description occupied full ten years, and necessitated the diagnosing 

 of over 3,500 new species. At the same time their enormous abundance 

 as individuals in the plankton collection, proved that these minute 

 rhizopods, quite unknown up to 1834, constituted the most important 



D 



