A Skeleton made of Sand. 347 



porcelain. The forms a,re various, and different 

 species may be said severally to present the shapes 

 of an eye, a coin, a flask, a chain, a nautilus shell, a 

 plait of hair, or a baker's twist, a globe, or a group of 

 globes, or simply some patterri of decorative art. The 

 shell, or skeleton, indeed, seems, as a rule, to have a 

 symmetry and beauty out of proportion to the very 

 simple amoeba-like soft body of the animal, which 

 performs the functions of existence, without head or 

 tail, without arms or legs, by thrusting out and 

 drawing in its pseudopodia, the so-called false-feet, 

 which are merely retractile extensions of its general 

 substance. 



While, however, a great number of these shells 

 satisfy the eye by the definiteness and neatness of 

 the form exhibited on so small a scale, there is, 

 strange to say, another group in which there are 

 species characterized by their thick, soft walls con- 

 sisting of mud, or of only slighted cemented sand. 

 These belong to the family astrorhizidae. 



In 1884, Mr. Henry Brady published his fine "Report 

 on the Foraminifera collected by the Challenger? In 

 this he incorporated all the information that could be 

 obtained on the subject in general. He says : 



" Our acquaintance with the large arenaceous rhizo- 

 pods, which constitute the family astrorhizidae, is 

 almost entirely derived from the operations of the 

 various recent expeditions, organised and equipped 

 by government for the exploration of the deep sea. 

 The genus Astrorhiza was described by Sandahl in 

 1857, and a closely allied type, Dendrophrya, by 

 Strethill Wright Jn 1861, but these are amongst 



