158 Mr.E.Parfitt on a Species of Arenaceous Foraminifer (?) 



of my view. This is all I desire to say upon tlie subject at 

 present. Although I now firmly believe that the valvular 

 orifice in the Cystidea, the larger lateral aperture of the Blas- 

 toidea, and the so-called proboscis of the palaeozoic Crinoids 

 are all oro-anal in function, yet I shall not maintain that view 

 obstinately against good reasons shown to the contrary, 



XVII. — On a SjJecies of Arenaceous Foraminifer (?) from 

 the Carboniferous Limestone of Devonshire. By Edward 

 Parfitt, Esq. 



[Plate XI. figs. 9-12.] 



To the Editors of the Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 



Gentlemen, 



I beg to enclose you a rough sketch of what I had at first 

 regarded as a species of Cliona new to science ; but on a more 

 extended acquaintance with the specimens, and comparing 

 them with the beautiful figures of the arenaceous Foraminifera 

 described by Dr. Carpenter in the Royal Society's ' Trans- 

 actions,' vol. clix. part 2, plates 72-76, I am now more in- 

 clined to regard it as a sessile arenaceous Foraminifer. 

 This species or form I met with on a block of carboniferous 

 limestone brought from the quarry of Westleigh, near Tiverton, 

 Devonshire. The specimen covered a space of eight or ten 

 inches, and was so consolidated with the rock that, had it not 

 been for the weathered surface, I should have passed it by. 



The weathered surface has just the appearance of what we 

 might expect to see in a free fossil Cliona', the resupinate sto- 

 lons, variously branched and attached, quite resemble those of 

 the recent forms of this genus (fig. 9). On having a small spe- 

 cimen cut and polished, I was much surprised to find that all 

 the interstices between the stolons were filled with sand, 

 charged more or less with a ferruginous tint ; and on applying 

 nitric acid to the surface for some time, this ate away the cal- 

 careous portions and left the interstices standing up promi- 

 nently between the calcareous disks. The sand, as now ex- 

 posed, appears to be quartz ; and, generally speaking, the 

 grains are as sharply angular as if it had just been broken up 

 on purpose for this animal, and used by it directly. On com- 

 paring the part which had been submitted to the acid with 

 the figures in the Royal Society's ' Transactions,' pi. 76, there 

 is a very strong family likeness at once apparent. In my 

 s})ecimen the labyrinthiform spaces are filled with calcareous 

 matter of the same coloiu' as, and apparently very little different 

 from, the limestone ; at the same time each of the spaces of the 



