266 Mr. H. J. Carter on the Opaque Scarlet Spherules 



of their nature than that they were the representatives in a 

 mineralized state of its reproductive elements. 



I therefore did not hesitate to regard them as such, and so, 

 for confirmation, gave them, in connexion with similar objects 

 in recent specimens of Operculina, as illustrations of the repro- 

 ductive process, probably in the Foraminifera generally 

 {' Annals,' 1861, vol. viii. pp. 818 and 319, 325, and 451, 

 and pi. xvii. figs. 12-15 and 1, o). But being then in India 

 I was not aware that Max Schultze had previously noticed 

 and delineated similar bodies in the chambers of recent 

 Rotalice (' Organismus der Polythalamien,' 1854, p. 27), 

 nor that he had shortly after, viz. two years, verified this in 

 a species of Miliola (Muller's * Archiv,' 1 856, Nos. 1 and 2, 

 p. 165, Taf. vi.B). 



However, here I left the subject, and here it would have 

 remained for myself had not accident thrown in my way the 

 fossil for which 1 have proposed the nameof '■'' Stoliczkiella Theo- 

 haldi,^^ wherein I was surprised to find, both dispersed through 

 its substance and in the chambers of the enclosed foraminiferal 

 tests themselves, red bodies similar in every respect to those 

 observed in the Wasna specimens, as stated in the communi- 

 cation to which I have alluded. I then sought for the same 

 in my mounted slices of Loftusia persica^ where they were 

 equally abundant; and finally found them again equally 

 plentiful in that species for which I have proposed the name 

 of " Millarella cantahrigiensis " {I. c). So that, but for these 

 coincidences and this chain of evidence, which an experience 

 of twenty-seven years has thus brought to light, the nature 

 of the Loftusiidge in this respect might have remained unknown 

 for a considerable time. 



It should be noticed here that the only coloured portions in 

 the infiltrated specimens from Wasna are the sarcodiferous 

 cavities and the scarlet spherules, while the shelly parts 

 remain opaque white or transparent, as the case may be ; 

 thus the chambers and the intercameral tubes, together with 

 the canal-system, are all more or less filled with bright ochre- 

 yellow substance, while the reproductive bodies vary both in 

 point of colour and size, as will be stated hereafter, but are 

 of course most striking by contrast where composed of opaque 

 scarlet or bright rusty-red substance, which renders their 

 presence so peculiarly distinct in these instances that they may 

 be counted under the microscope as easily as peas in the palm 

 of the hand. 



Among the specimens of infiltrated Foraminifera from tlie 

 Eocene of the locality mentioned I am enabled, from the 

 varied sections which they present, to select a series which 



