452 Mr. H. J. Carter on Specimens 



the Manaar specimens have revealed respecting this beautiful 

 little organism. 



Rotalia sjnculotesta, sp. 1877. 



To the description of this species given in the ' Annals ' 

 of 1877 (I. c), and the intimation of Mr. H. B. Brady that he 

 had obtained three specimens out of " dredgings " from the 

 Red Sea, whereby he had been able to ascertain that the 

 spiculiform bodies of the test were calcareous, I have little 

 to add. In the first place, then, it is evident that the 

 number of specimens about the small amount of material from 

 the Gulf of Manaar indicates that it is very plentiful there ; 

 they (six) are all about the same size as that which I origi- 

 nally described ; and if any difference exists between the two, 

 it is simply that the spiculiform bodies in the Gulf-of-Manaar 

 specimens are more quadrangular or oblong than elliptical, while 

 they are the reverse in that to which I have alluded, viz. that 

 which came from the South Pacific Ocean ; they are respec- 

 tively fixed upon the surface of the Melobesian nodules ; and, 

 with so much material, I have been able to mount a fragment 

 of the test in Canada balsam for examination of the spicules 

 under a higher power, whereupon they seem to me to be solid 

 and the granular matter between them to consist of micro- 

 scopic bodies of the same form, although of different sizes. I 

 have also been able to confirm Mr. Brady's observation that 

 they are calcareous, inasmuch as they dissolve entirely, with 

 effervescence, in dilute nitric acid. 



Although all the specimens to which I have alluded appear 

 to contain nothing but the spiculiform bodies in their tests, 

 I have met with some smaller (? young) specimens of the 

 same Foraminifer about the Melobesian nodules, which, when 

 mounted in balsam, show that their tests are at this 

 period composed of a heterogeneous assemblage of micro- 

 scopic bodies (? calcareous sand), in the midst of which one or 

 more of the genuine spicular ones form prominent features, 

 from their large size and isolated condition. Thus it may be 

 that sometimes the test is composed of foreign material as 

 well as bodies produced by the animal itself — a condition 

 among the testaceous freshwater Rhizopoda to which Dr. G. 

 C. Wallich has alluded in his valuable paper " on Structural 

 Variation among the DifHugian Rhizopods " (' Annals,' 

 1864, vol. xiii. p. 233 &c.) . 



Free Species of Foraminifera. 



As it is not my object to give a list of all the free forms of 

 Foraminifera that occur about the Melobesian nodules, it will 



