CHAP. IX] THE DEEP-SEA FAUNA. 415 
what relation, if any, they have to the coccoliths, 
we do not know. 
Living upon and among this Bathybius, we find 
a multitude of other protozoa,--foraminifera and 
other rhizopods, radiolarians, and sponges; and we 
as yet know very little of the life-history of these 
eroups. ‘There can be no doubt that when their 
development has been fully traced many of them 
will be found to be di- or poly-morphic, and that 
when we are acquainted with their mode of multi- 
plication we shall meet with many cases of pleo- 
morphism and wide differences between the organs 
and products involved in propagation and in repro- 
duction. I feel by no means satisfied that Bathybius 
is the permanent form of any distinct living being. 
It has seemed to me that different samples have been 
different in appearance and consistence; and although 
there is nothing at all improbable in the abundance 
of a very simple shell-less ‘moner’ at the bottom 
of the sea, I think it not impossible that a great 
deal of the ‘bathybius,’ that is to say the diffused 
formless protoplasm which we find at great depths, 
may be a kind of mycelium—a formless condition 
connected either with the growth and multiplication 
or with the decay—of many different things. 
Many foraminifera of different groups inhabit 
the deep water, lying upon or mixed in the upper 
layer of the globigerina ooze, or fixed to some foreign 
body, such as a sponge, coral, or stone; and all of 
these are remarkable for their large size. In the 
‘warm area,’ and wherever the bottom is covered with 
ooze, calcareous forms predominate, and large sandy 
eristellarians, with their sand-grains bound together 
