44i3 REPORT — 1867. 



Williamson's ^yo^k as a bayis for the enumeration of tho various forms of our 

 recent Foraminifera. 



In taking this course, I but follow in the steps of Mr. H. B. Brady, who 

 published in the Transactions of the Linnean Society, vol. xxiv., a list of the 

 Shetland Foraminifera, derived principally from dredgings furnished by Mr. 

 Jeffreys and myself, with some additions from my own examinations. His 

 catalogue has been so carefully constructed, and his investigation of any 

 doubtful species introduced into Mr. Williamson's book on questionable 

 authority has been so full, that I am relieved from difficulties I should 

 otherwise have been unable to surmount within tho time elapsed since my 

 return from the Shctlauds, and I have little to do except to continue his work 

 up to the present time. 



Mr. Williamson describes 104 species and varieties, of which Mr. Brady 

 remarks that three are most probably fossil, and that two others have been 

 Avithdrawn as Mediterranean, introduced by accident. Deducting these, there 

 remain 99 recent British Foraminifera known at that time. Mr. Brady, in his 

 Shetland list, gives 92 of those, and adds 19 new forms, making 111 in that 

 district, and 118 in Britain. Mr. Brady, in vol. i. of the Natural History 

 Transactions of Northumberland and Diu-ham, describes from those coasts 6 

 Foraminifera new to Britain ; and in his report to this Association on the 

 Foraminifera of the Hebrides as resulting from Mr. Jeifreys's dredging in 

 1866, he gives eleven more species, and I now add from the Shctlauds one 

 more new to Britain, raising its list to 136. I have also found four of the 

 new Durham species in dredgings of 1864, but too late for Mr. Brady's pub- 

 lications, and in the present year's examinations three of the new forms of 

 the Hebrides and two of Mr. \Yilliamson's not before noted, thus bringing up 

 the Shetland list to 121, or within 15 of the whole British forms. 



That of those 136 species or varieties from the entire range of the British 

 coasts so large a proportion as 121 should be found in a limited district at 

 one extremity of tho empire, is a result which I believe could scarcely be ob- 

 tained in any other department of natural history ; and it may, perhaps, be 

 no unfair conclusion, from this and their bathymetrical conditions, that slight 

 changes of climate ]iave little influence on those low forms of life, while depth 

 of water has greater power of hmitatiou, some species being only known 

 close to the shore or in very shallow water, while in the great depths are foi;nd 

 only a few and different forms. It is, however, true that by the advance 

 northward the Shetland Foraminifera approach more nearly to the Norwegian 

 species and varieties than do those of the southern parts of England and 

 Ireland. 



I have many specimens from this year's dredgings which will require 

 considerable time to work out satisfactorily. Some of them have been Idndly 

 examined by Mr. Rupert Jones, and I hope for his further assistance ; and I 

 expect that, in conjunction with Mr. Brady, I may be able, at no distant time, 

 to have them fully described and figured. There are new forms of i?(7ocw?(«ff, 

 Gdudrtjina, Dlmorpliina, Cornuspira and, I believe, FoJytrema, which wUl 

 afford considerable additions to our known species, and, I think, prove that 

 our Shetland dredgings have given satisfactory results in this branch of our 

 fauna. 



