NOTES OM RETICULARIAN RHIZOPODA. 293 



conditions of life at the surface of the ocean, but also for a 

 more accurate comparison of its fauna with that of the sea- 

 bottom than has heretofore been possible. 



The earliest allusion to Foraminifera taken at the surface 

 of the sea is probably d'Orbigny's note on " Nonionina^^ 

 pelagica which has been already quoted ; this was in the year 

 1839. There is no difficulty in identifying the drawings of 

 the specimens then found with Sir Wyville Thomson's 

 Hastigcrina Murrayana, or its congeners. 



In 1857, Mr. J. D. Macdonald^ figured a small spinous 

 Glohigerina, which he describes as "the species most usually 

 taken at the surface of the ocean." In the spring of tlip 

 same year Dr. Wallich and Captain and Mrs. Toynbee 

 appear also to have collected pelagic Glohigermce, but no 

 considerable addition was made to our knowledge of the 

 subject until ten years later, when Major S. R. I. Owen con- 

 tributed to the 'Journal of the Linnean Society '2 a paper 

 " On the surface-fauna of Mid-Ocean/' which contained our 

 first detailed account of pelagic Rhizopoda, and the first 

 intimation of the fact that the genus Pulvinulina was almost 

 as important a constituent of the surface-fauna as Glohigerina 

 itself. Major Owen's gatherings contained the following 

 forms — I give them under the names employed in his paper — 



Glohigerina bulloides, d'Orb. 



— hirsuta, tl'Orb. 



— infiata, d'Orb. 

 Gl. {OrhuVma) universa, d'Orb. I — Micheliniana , d'Orb. 

 — — continens, Oweu. | — crassa, d'Orb. 



Three of these have, as I think, no claim to rank as species 

 or even as named varieties — but this is a question that need 

 not be debated here. 



Since Major Owen's memoir the only recorded observations 

 bearing on the subject are to be found in the brief notes sent 

 home from time to time by the '" Challenger " staff, and in the 

 summary of the zoological work accomplished on board the 

 vessel, furnished by Mr. Murray for the 'Proceedings of the 

 Royal Society Mn 1876.^ These refer chiefly to points connected 

 with the life-history of Glohigerina and Hastigerina. 



Facilities have been afforded me for the examination, not 

 merely of the extensive series of mountings made by Mr. 

 Murray on the spot from the contents of the tow-net, but 

 also of portions of the various bottles of surface organisms 



1 ' Anu. and Maf^. Nat. Hist.,' ser. 2, vol. xx, p. 26C, pi. 7. 

 ' 'Journ. Linn. Soc. Loud.,' 1867, vol. ix, "Zoology," pp. 148— 157, 

 pi. .5. 



^ 'Proc. Roy. Soc.,' vol. xxiv, p. 471 — 544. 

 VOL. XIX, NEW SER, U 



Gl. (Orbulina) acerosa, Owen. 

 Ptilvinulina ilenurdii, d'Orb. 

 — canarinesis, d'Orb. 



