Nature o/* Haliphysema Tumanowlczii. 73 



ul vitality, and as represented in PI. V., may be most appro- 

 priately compared to that of a beaded spider's web, endowed 

 throughout its mazy extent with sentient life, and exhibiting 

 in every thread an outflowing and inflowing stream of it3 

 constituent granules. The fabricator of the web, in further 

 pursuance of this simile, may be imagined as occupying the 

 cavity within the test, but having no occasion to rush out and 

 pounce upon its entangled prey after the manner of a terres- 

 trial spider, this being in due course brought to it from 

 the most outlying ramification of the web by the never-ceas- 

 ing centrifugal and centripetal circulation. Here and there 

 a small particle, suitable for food or for the further fabrication 

 of the test, might be seen in such a manner entangled, as at 

 h h b oi the same Plate, and gradually travelling with the 

 flowing sarcode towards the terminal aperture of this structure. 

 The extension of the sarcode as a thin web-like expansion, 

 while witnessed on several subsequent occasions, was rarely 

 seen to attain so luxuriant a development as was exhibited in 

 the present instance. 



The foraminiferal nature of Haliphysema Tumanowiczii 

 being now established beyond question through a full inves- 

 tigation of its vital manifestations, brief attention may be 

 directed to the characters presented by the external test or 

 skeletal portion. In this direction there is found associated 

 with the specimens gathered on the Jersey coast a considera- 

 ble amount of deviation from the typical form first described 

 and figured by Mr. Carter in the pages of this journal. 

 Passing over the internally septate and dome-shaped basis of 

 attachment, which has been already described with sufficient 

 accuracy by Mr. Carter and is persistent in its character, the 

 test, as it occurs here, is, in the majority of instances, more 

 elongate and irregularly shaped, and in many cases consi- 

 derably contorted. Neither on any occasion has there as yet 

 been encountered a specimen marked by the deep annular 

 constrictions delineated by Mr. Carter, and which are, indeed, 

 by no means so clearly defined as represented in his sketches 

 in those type examples kindly placed by him some years 

 since at my disposal ; Mr. Norman's experience in this par- 

 ticular apparently agrees with my own. That these Jersey 

 Haliphysemata^ however, are identical with Mr. Carter's type, 

 or rather with the original Haliphysema Tumanoxoiczii of 

 Dr. Bowerbank, there can be but little doubt, every gradation 

 being traceable, from the simply clavate and slightly bent 

 form originally figured and described by Dr. Bowerbank 

 (Brit. Spong. vol. i. pi. xxx. fig. 359), to the elongate and 

 much-contorted shapes above referred to. That the more 



