a new Species of Foraminifera. 319 



illustrations (fig. 10), showing so plainly and so unmistakably 

 the remains of the nautiloid chambered spire with an opening 

 in the position of the initial or primary cell, that no doubt can 

 now be entertained of the foregoing conclusions. 



I am not quite certain whether this disk, which had fallen 

 off a portion of fucus bearing a number of both species of 

 Squamulina (viz. scojjida and varians), preserved in spirit, 

 belongs to the former or to the latter species ; for the former 

 always has a hole in the summit of its pedestal, and the latter 

 may or may not have it there, as will be seen presently, 

 when it is described ; but whether it belongs to one or the 

 other, the observations on the comparative morphology apjjly 

 equally to both species ; and thus the specimen is as conclu- 

 sive of the homology of Squamulina scopula with the nautiloid 

 forms of Foraminifera as it will be found conclusive of the 

 same fact in the description of Squamulina varians, the latter 

 being, as it were, merely the pedestal of the former increased 

 in size and somewhat altered in shape by the absence of the 

 columnar portion. 



Thus, however much in the first instance we find the radii 

 in the disk of the pedestal of Squamulina scojjula like the 

 septal divisions of a coral-polype, we shall presently see, in 

 S. varians, that where they are altogether absent they leave a 

 simple globular chamber, and that where, on the contrary, 

 they are more or less developed they only present a step fur- 

 ther towards the pedestal of Squamulina scopula, which is but 

 a transitional form to a nautiloid foraminifer, and not to a 

 coral-polype ; that is to say, that the simplest form of Squa- 

 mulina passes thus into a nautiloid form of Foraminifera, and 

 not direct into that of a coral-polype. 



Lastly, I alluded to the presence of the dark-brown bits of 

 decaying fucus in the ventral portion of the animal of Squa- 

 mulina scojmla as resembling similar contents in the body of 

 an yEthalium. I do not mean to identify ^thalium in its 

 massive amoeboid state (that is, before it comes to maturity, 

 dries up, and developes its sporidia) with a foraminiferous 

 animal ; but I mean to say that bits of brown decaying wood 

 and resinous matter may be seen in an u^fhalium, evidently 

 incepted from the woody tissue in or among which it had been 

 living, much the same as we see the bits of decaying fucus in 

 the ventral portion of Squamulina scojnda — and, fmlher, that 

 the reproductive cells of S. scopula and the Foraminifera that 

 I have examined in a living state are very like the reproduc- 

 tive cells of JEtlialium.^ in form and in crowded number, just 

 before the latter pass into the matured or dried state, and be- 

 come black or otherwise deeply coloured. 



