2 THE FOEAMINIFERA 



plants. The shells of the Foraminifera are easily 

 distmguished hy their particular shape and texture ; 

 they are sometimes white and opaque, glassy or 

 translucent, and often decorated with the finest and 

 most beautiful surface tracery. Their minuteness, 

 especially those in shore-sands, may be conceived 

 from the fact that one observer, Plancus, counted 

 6,000 in an ounce of sand from the Adriatic. This 

 number is perhaps rather within than beyond the 

 mark. 



One of our best examples of a strand composed 

 almost entirely of foraminiferal shells in the British 

 Islands is that of Dog's Bay, near Connemara. The 

 sand from this locality contains a very small admixture 

 of molluscan shells, Ostracoda, and other marine or- 

 ganisms, and the lighter foraminiferous shell material 

 is blown inland for a considerable distance, forming 

 drifts and mounds. Messrs. Balkwill and Millett drew 

 attention to this rich deposit some years ago, describ- 

 ing many species, since when Mr. Joseph Wright of 

 Belfast has considerably added to the list, and the 

 number now recorded from this bay alone amounts to 

 124 species and varieties. Through the courtesy of 

 Mr. E. Welch the writer has been able to include a 

 view of this bay, which is thus of so much interest 

 to naturalists. (See Frontispiece.) 



Fig. 1 represents a sample of shore-sand from the 

 Sussex coast, containing numerous Foraminifera, 

 associated with broken njolluscan shells, fragments 

 of corallines, Ostracoda, and quartz-grains. 



The shells of Foraminifera collected from shore- 



