tioo new Genera allied to Loftusin. 181 



Loc. Cambridge Greensand. 



Ohs. Although in general form this fossil might be easily 

 mistaken for a Farkeria^ the total absence of all distinct tubu- 

 liferous structure both externally and internally, together wath 

 the quantity of foraminiferal detritus in its composition, is 

 quite sufficient to point out the difference. I have alluded to 

 the presence of glauconite in the chambers of some of the 

 foraminiferal tests, and inferred that all the particles of this 

 mineral originated in this way, although, when increasing in 

 size, assuming forms which are totally unlike a foraminiferal 

 test ; but that they are so may be learnt from an examination 

 of the green particles generally of the " Greensand," — to which 

 it is curious to add that this is going on at the present time in 

 the Globigeriniferous sand of the bed of the Atlantic (see 

 " Deep-sea Sponges dredged on board H.M.S. ' Porcupine,' " 

 'Annals/ 1876, vol. xviii. p. 474, under " Black Grains "); 

 while it is also remarkable that glauconite is altogether absent 

 in my specimens of Loftusia persica and only seen in very 

 small quantity in Stoliczkiella Theohaldi. 



What the nature of the animal of the Loftusiidte may have 

 been it is difficult to conjecture further than that, in all three 

 genera, it must have had the power of enclosing foreign 

 material like the Amoeba, and therefore its substance must 

 have been rhizopodous, hence the absence of ail wall indica- 

 ting tubulation. Again, the broken-down forms of the tests 

 mightha ve been both for nutriment and skeletal purposes. The 

 rhizopodous character of both Sponges and Foraminifera afford 

 examples of this, ex gr. my genus Holopsamma {' Annals,' 

 1885, vol. XV. p. 211) and the arenaceous foraminiferal tests, 

 in both of which the plasmic sarcode or protoplasm builds up 

 foreign material into the specific form which the apparently 

 identical simple substance is destined to produce. But here all 

 identification of the Loftusiidge with the Sponges and typical 

 Foraminifera seems to cease, although there is a great resem- 

 blance between Brady's " Syringammina fragillissima " 

 (' Challenger ' Keport on Foraminifera, vol. ix., text, p. 242) 

 and Millarella cantabrigiensis, especially in illustration "a," 

 but not in the tubular structure " c" (woodcuts), so that we 

 must look still further for a nearer analogy. 



Undoubtedly the same sarcodic structure in Loftusia per- 

 sica which took in foreign material presents in the fossil a 



that the Farkei-ia not only grew upon the llillarella, but that the latter 

 presents signs in its obtuse end of having originally been attached to some 

 submarine object, which would seem to be not uncommon, for there are 

 three more instances of it in my cabinet. 



Ann. (& Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 6. Vol. i. 13 



