502 Dr. G. G. Wallicli on a new Sessile 



The specimens were obtained by me in 1860, in tlirce 

 soundings taken on board II. M.S. ' Bulldog,' on opposite sides 

 of the southern extremity of Greenland — the depth in the three 

 localities varying from 108 fathoms on the east coast, to 1205 

 fathoms on the west. In each locality the number of speci- 

 mens was considerable, and the condition of the shells such 

 as to indicate their perfect freshness at the time they were 

 brought up from the bottom. Partly owing, however, to the 

 impossibility of carrying on microscopic work during such 

 tempestuous weather as prevailed whilst the ' Bulldog ' cruised 

 in those latitudes, and partly to my having been deceived by 

 the resemblance observable in the outline of the neck and 

 margin of the disk of the new form to a monstrously developed 

 species of ZTvigerina^ it did not receive the attention it de- 

 served, but remained stored away in my collection until 1874, 

 when, on re-examining my North-Atlantic materials, I at once 

 perceived that it was both specifically and generically new. 



Nevertheless, fully recognizing in the daily increasing dis- 

 taste for the undue multiplication of types one of the most 

 salutary results of modern biological teaching, and feeling 

 disinclined to rely too far on my own opinion, I made up my 

 mind to defer sending forth any observations on the subject 

 until that opinion should be confirmed and strengthened by 

 some thoroughly experienced and trustworthy authority on 

 the Foraminifera. Under these circumstances I submitted 

 my specimens, figures, and brief memoranda, to my able and 

 obliging friends Professors Rupert Jones and Parker. Their 

 report, which reached me a few days ago together with my 

 embodied memoranda, I now, with their permission, publish. 



I have named the new form after Prof. Rupert Jones, Ra- 

 'pertia stahilis^ in recognition of the obligation he has laid me 

 under, not only on this but on former occasions when I have 

 sought his counsel on questions relating to the Foraminifera. 



Rnpertia stabilis, Wall. (See PI. XX.) 



" A chambered hyaline Foraminifer of the Rotaline group, 

 subpyriform, with an irregular lumpy outline, like some of the 

 asymmetrical Puffballs, and somewhat resembling an inverted 

 Ascidia mamillata. The shell is fixed by a relatively large 

 basal disk, and raised on a thick cylindrical neck or pedestal, 

 usually straight, but sometimes slightly curved, from which 

 several spacious chambers swell upwards and outwards, with 

 an imperfect spiral arrangement, resulting in the often top- 

 heavy, lopsided, and asymmetrical outline of the full-grown 

 sheU. Young individuals are simply subglobular and pedun- 

 culated." (The disk, from the earliest stage of the shell, 



