WYVILLE THOMSON 53 



came close to the surface, and we could see the distended net 

 through the water ; when, just as it was leaving the water, 

 and so greatly increasing its weight, the swivel between the 

 dredge-rope and the chain gave way, and the trawl with its 

 unknown burden quietly sank out of sight. It was a cruel 

 disappointment, every one was on the bridge, and curiosity 

 was wound up to the highest pitch : some vowed that they saw 

 resting on the beam of the vanishing trawl the white hand of 

 the mermaiden for whom we had watched so long in vain ; 

 but I think it is more likely that the trawl had got bagged 

 with the large sea-slugs which occur in some of these deep 

 dredgings in large quantity, and have more than once burst 

 the trawl net." 



Here is a record of an historic event in our knowledge of 

 the Protozoa (p. 293) :— 



" On one occasion in the Pacific, when Mr. Murray was out 

 in a boat in a dead calm collecting surface creatures, he took 

 gently up in a spoon a little globular gelatinous mass with a 

 red centre, and transferred it to a tube. This globule gave us 

 our first and last chance of seeing what a pelagic foraminifer 

 really is when in its full beauty. When placed under the 

 microscope it proved to be a Hastigerina in a condition wholly 

 different from anything which we had yet seen. The spines, 

 which were mostly unbroken, owing to its mode of capture, 

 were enormously long, about fifteen times the diameter of the 

 shell in length ; the sarcode, loaded with its yellow oil-cells, 

 was almost all outside the shell, and beyond the fringe of 

 yellow sarcode the space between the spines to a distance of 

 about twice the diameter of the shell all round was completely 

 filled up with delicate hullce, like those which we see in some 

 of the Radiolarians, as if the most perfectly transparent 

 portion of the sarcode had been blown out into a delicate 

 froth of bubbles of uniform size. Along the spines fine 

 double threads of transparent sarcode, loaded with minute 

 granules, coursed up one side and down the other, while 

 between the spines independent thread-like pseudopodia ran 



