Jan. 3, 1878] 



NA TURE 



187 



" In a very large proportion of the females which I 

 examined, young were closely packed in two continuous 

 fringes adhering to the water-feet of the dorsal ambu- 

 lacra. The young were in all the later stages of 

 growth, and of all sizes from 5 up to 40 mm. in length ; 

 but all the young attached to one female appeared to be 

 rearly of the same age and size. Some of the mothers 

 with older families had a most grotesque appearance — 

 their bodies entirely hidden b^' the couple of rows, of a 

 dozen or so each, of yellow vesicles, like ripe yellow 

 plums ranged along their backs, each surmounted by its 

 expanded crown of oral tentacles ; in the figure the 

 young are represented about half- 

 grown. All the young I examined 

 were miniatures of their parents ; the 

 only marked difference was that in 

 the young the ambulacra of the bivium 

 were quite rudimentary — they were 

 externally represented only by bands 

 of a somewhat darker orange than 

 the rest of the surface, and by lines 

 of low papillae in the young of larger 

 growth ; the radial vessels could be 

 well seen through the transparent 

 body-wall ; the young attached them- 

 selves by the tentacular feet of the 

 trivial ambulacra, which are early and 

 fully developed. 



" We were too late at the Falklands 

 (January 23) to see the process of the 

 attachment of the young in their nur- 

 sery, even if we could have arranged 

 to keep specimens alive under obser- 

 vation. There can be little doubt that, 

 according to the analogy of the class, 

 the eggs are impregnated either in the 

 ovarial tube or immediately after their 

 extrusion, that the first developmental 

 stages are run through rapidly, and 

 that the young are passed back from 

 the ovarial opening, which is at the 

 side of the mouth, aiong the dorsal 

 ambulacra, and arranged in their 

 places by the automatic action of the 

 ambulacral tentacles themselves." 



One other illustration we take, this 

 time from an animal living in the sur- 

 face water, though it sinks, when dead, 

 to the bottom of the sea (Fig. 5). 



'■^Hastigerina nmrrayi is very widely 

 distributed on the surface of warm 

 seas, more abundant, however, and 

 of larger size in the Pacific than in 

 the Atlantic. The shell consists of 

 a series of eight or nine rapidly 

 enlarging inflated chambers coiled 

 symmetrically on a plane ; the shell- 

 wall is extremely thin, perfectly hyaUne, 

 and rather closely perforated with 

 large and obvious pores. It is beset 

 \*ith a comparatively small number 

 of Very large and long spines. The 



tinous 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 Hastii(enna 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 



Fig. 5. — Hastigerina murrayi, \Vy viUe Thomson. From ihe surface. Fifty times the natural size. 



proximal portion of each spine is formed of three laminae, ^ round, was completely filled up with delicate bullce, like 



delicately serrated along their outer edges, and their inner 

 edges united together. The spines, when they come near 

 the point of junction with the shell, are contracted to a 

 narrow cylindrical neck, which is attached to the shell by 

 a slightly expanded conical base. The distal portion of 

 the spine loses its three diverging laminae, and becomes 

 flexible and thread-like. The sarcode is of a rich orange 

 colour from included highly-cooured oil globules . 



" On one occasion in the. IPacific, when Mr. Murray 

 was out in a boat in a dead calm collecting surface crea- 

 tures, he took gently up in a spoon a little globular gela- 



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 inde- 

 pendent thread-like pseudopodia ran out, some of them 

 perfectly free, and others anastomosing with one another 

 or joining the sarcodic sheaths of the spines, but ail 

 showing the characteristic flowing movement of Uving 

 protoplasm." . 



