a new Genus of Foraminifera. 339 
The Foraminifera brought under notice in the foregoing 
memoir are in a high degree interesting from certain peculiari- 
ties of structure not hitherto recognized in members of the 
up to which they belong. It is necessary, however, in the 
first place to notice one or two errors in the description of the 
nus; and this I am enabled to do (through the courtesy of 
Professor Seguenza) from observations made upon specimens 
collected in the Sicilian localities alluded to in the text.: 
That we have in these beautiful little shells from the Miocene 
Clays representatives of a new subtypical form of Nodosarian 
Foraminifera, no one will doubt; but the characters assigned 
to them would indicate, if correct, not merely generic or sub- 
generic peculiarities, but rather a plan of growth entirely new 
to the order. The most important of these is indicated by the 
statement that there is no communication between the interior 
of one chamber and that of the succeeding one. ‘This is proba- 
bly intended to mean intercommunication in the ordinary 
way by a central orifice, though no qualification is made of 
the broad general statement. Were such a supposition verified, 
it would necessitate the conclusion either that the animal 
vacated the smaller chambers as succeeding larger ones were 
formed, or that the minute foramina existing in the shell- 
wall were sufficient for the exercise of its functional require- 
ments so far as concerned the intercommunication of the sar- 
code-segments—suppositions equally without parallel in the 
economy of species whose shell=structure has been well made 
out. The difficulty of accepting the relation of parts indicated 
in the sectional diagram accompanying the original paper led 
to the observations of which I now give the results. 
The normal mode of growth amongst the straight Nodosa- 
rine consists in the formation of a straight line of sarcode- 
segments united by narrow stolons. Hach new chamber-wall 
is produced by the deposit of a calcareous test on a lobe of 
sarcode issuing from the terminal aperture of the last-formed 
chamber. Hence each stolon represents the interior of what 
was in its turn the terminal aperture, and its length depends 
on the character of the orifice. In some species, in which the 
mouth does not protrude, the length of the stolon is only as 
much as the thickness of the shell-wall, whilst in others the 
chambers are surmounted by a neck nearly equal in length to 
the main body of a segment. Prof. Seguenza’s figures of F. 
ellipsoides show a long terminal neck somewhat of the latter 
description, as indicated by the dotted lines in figs. 1 & 2, 
Pl. XII. Unfortunately no specimen has come under my 
notice in this condition ; consequently my remarks are founded 
on the corresponding structures in the interior of the shell. 
