30 HENRY B. BRADY. 



of the " Challenger " dredgings the species is by no means 

 uncommon, but owing to the loose crumbling character of 

 the test, nearly every specimen is more or less broken and 

 much in the condition of that represented in fig. 19 of the same 

 plate. A number of individuals, apparently belonging to the 

 same species, have been met with, bearing only three or four 

 segments. These are generally of smaller size, and are com- 

 posed of finer sand-grains ; the segments have the normal 

 globular shape, but they are more symmetrically arranged. 



The distribution of Sorosphara confusa appears to be 

 somevphat local, but in areas wide apart. It occurs amongst 

 the "Challenger" gatherings at one station in the North 

 Atlantic (off the Azores, 900 fathoms), at one in the South 

 Atlantic (off Buenos Ayres, 1900 fathoms), and at two points 

 near together in the North Pacific (2050 and 2900 fathoms 

 respectively), and I have also met with it in one of the 

 " Porcupine " soundings in the North Atlantic. 



G*eww5— PELOSINA, nov. 



(ttjjXocj mud.) 



General Characters. — Test free, one- or many-chambered, 

 with walls composed of a thick layer of mud, terminating in 

 an elongate chitinous neck. 



Pelosina variabilis, n. sp. PI. Ill, figs. 1, 2, 3. 



Characters. — Test consisting of a single chamber, or of 

 several independent (?) chambers irregularly associated. 

 Segments unsymmetrical, variable in shape, generally 

 rounded, elongate and tapering. Walls thick, composed of 

 fine mud deposited on a chitinous (?) basis, which is usually 

 extended beyond the body of the test as a sort of neck. 

 Aperture terminal. Size of the individual segments variable, 

 sometimes I inch (8 millim.) or more in length. 



It is not easy to determine with any certainty the affinities 

 of the shapeless or irregularly shaped muddy organisms 

 which have been placed together under the generic name 

 Pelosina. That they are inhabited by sarcode animals is 

 known, but what common characters they may have, suffi- 

 ciently permanent and distinctive to serve as the basis of a 

 zoological group — generic or even specific — is not so manifest. 

 Of the larger Rhizopoda, perhaps Astrorhiza limicola pre- 

 sents the nearest parallel in the employment of indiscrimi- 

 nate mud as the material for the construction of its invest- 

 ment, and the same species presents an example of the com- 



