CHAP. 1x.] THE DEEP-SEA FAUNA. 413 
Entangled and borne along in the viscid streams 
of Bathybius, we so constantly find a multitude of 
minute calcareous bodies of a peculiar shape, that 
the two were for long supposed to have some 
mutual relation to one another. These small bodies, 
which have been carefully studied by Huxley,’ 
Sorby,’ Haeckel,’ Carter,* Giimbel,’ and others, are 
in shape somewhat like oval shirt-studs. There is 
first a little oval disk about 0°01 mm. in length, with 
an oblong rudely facetted elevation in the centre, 
and round that, in fresh specimens, what seems to be 
a kind of frill of organic matter, then a short neck, 
and lastly a second smaller flat disk, like the disk 
at the back of a stud. ‘To these bodies, which are 
met with in all stages of development, Professor 
Huxley has given the name of ‘ coccoliths.’ Some- 
times they are found aggregated on the surface of 
small transparent membranous balls, and these 
which seemed at first to have something to do with 
the production of the ‘coccoliths’ Dr. Wallich has 
called ‘coccospheres’ (Fig. 64). Professor Ernst 
Haeckel has lately described a very elegant organ- 
ism belonging to the radiolaria and apparently 
allied to Thalassicolla,—Myxobrachia rhopalum,—and 
at the ends of some curious diverging appendages 
of this creature he has detected accumulations of 
bodies closely resembling, if not identical with, the 
coccoliths and coccospheres of the sea-bottom. These 
* Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, 1868, p. 203. 
2 Proceedings of the Sheffield Literary and Philosophical Society, 
October 1860. 3" Op. eit. 
4 Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. 1871, p. 184. 
5 Jahrbuch Miinch. 1870, p. 753. 
