NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 
Professor Huxley on the Genus Bathybius.—The following 
extracts from a latter dated Yeddo, June 9th, 1875, addressed 
to me by Professor Wyville Thomson, will, I think, interest 
the readers of ‘ Nature ’:— 
“In a note lately published in the proceedings of the 
Royal Society on the nature of our soundings in the Southern 
Sea, I stated that up to that time we had never seen any 
trace of the pseudopodia of Globigerina. I have now to tell 
a different tale, for we have seen them very many times, and 
their condition and the entire appearance and behaviour of 
the sarcode are, in a high degree, characteristic and peculiar. 
When the living Globigerina is examined under very favor- 
able circumstances, that is to say, when it can at once be 
transferred from the tow-net and placed under a tolerably 
high power in fresh, still sea-water, the sarcodic contents of 
the chambers may be seen to exude gradually through the 
pores of the shell and spread out until they form a gelatinous 
fringe or border round the shell, filling up the spaces among 
the roots of the spines, and rising up a little way along their 
length. This external coating of sarcode is rendered very 
visible by the oil-globules, which are oval and of considerable 
size, and filled with intensely coloured secondary globules ; 
they are drawn along by the sarcode, and may be observed, 
with a little care, following its spreading or contracting 
movements. At the same time an infinitely delicate sheath 
of sarcode containing minute transparent granules, but no 
oil-globules, rises on each of the spines to its extremity, and 
may be seen creeping up one side and down the other of the 
spine, with the peculiar flowing movement with which we 
are so familiar in the pseudopodia of Gromia and of the 
Radiolarians. If the cell in which the Globigerina is float- 
ing receive a sudden shock, or if a drop of some irritating 
liquid be added to the water, the whole mass of protoplasm 
retreats into the shell with great rapidity, drawing the oil- 
globules along with it, and the outline of the surface of the 
shell and of the hair-like spines is left as sharp as before the 
exodus of the sarcode. We are getting sketches carefully 
