694 Transactions of the Society. 



•were described in more or less detail by the late Dr. Carpenter * and 

 myself, f 



On my visit to Fiji at the end of the year 1884, my attention was 

 naturally turned to this amongst other Foraminifera peculiar to the 

 region, but beyond a few worn examples, apparently dead shells, found 

 on the lieach at Loma-Loma, my search for it was at first almost fruit- 

 less. The weather was stormy, I had been delayed by vexatious 

 quarantine regulations until the hurricane season had set in, and I 

 could rarely get out to the reefs. When at last I was able to land on 

 the reef oft" Suva, I soon met with the object of my quest, though the 

 specimens, as we sliall presently see, did not correspond in all respects 

 with those collected in such numbers by the ' Challenger ' naturalists. 

 To my surprise the shells were parasitic, generally firmly attached to 

 a green Alga which flourishes amongst tiie coral-sand at the bottom of 

 the shallower pools on the reef; — I had previously supposed that the 

 adherent habit of the Orbitolite ceased at a very early stage in the 

 growth of the disc. Their peripheral edges were exceedingly brittle 

 — so fragile indeed that it was often impossible to remove the speci- 

 mens without more or less breakage. Other slight peculiarities were 

 apparent, but there was little opportunity for close examination on 

 the spot. 



In working over the material collected in Fiji, since my return, 

 my attention was attracted to these specimens, not only by the 

 peculiarity of their general appearance, but more particularly by 

 what seemed to the naked eye to be a number of very young indi- 

 viduals adhering to the central portion of one of the flatter discs ; and 

 on further investigation I found that not only was this inference 

 correct, but that the marginal annuli, wherever the interior was exposed 

 by fracture, were crowded with similar minute embryonic shells ; and 

 further, that the coral-sand obtained from the same pools contained 

 enormous numbers of young specimens in various stages of develop- 

 ment, together with fragments of the thin, perforated, annular septa 

 of the parent shells. 



The occurrence of young individuals in this position is not 

 altogether a new fact. Many years ago Prof. W. K. Parker found 

 "a number of very young specimens, consisting simply of the 

 primordial chamber and the one surrounding it " in the " deeply 

 channelled margin of one of these plicated forms of Orhitolites " ; f 

 and the same specimens are referred to in Dr. Carpenter's ' Challenger ' 

 Report, as " consisting only of the * nucleus ' and a single annulus of 

 sub-segments," the author adding that he had found " similar speci- 

 mens in the same situation in some of the large Fijian discs."§ My 

 own examination of a considerable number of the ' Challenger ' 

 specimens leads me to think that the occurrence amongst them of 

 such examples must be comparatively rare; and not one of the 



* ' Report on the Genus Orbitolites,' p. 35, pi. vii. 



t 'Report on the Challenger Foraminifera,' p. 220, pi. xvi., figs. 8-11. 



X Carpenter, ' Introduction to the Study of the Foraminifera,' p. 38, pi. iv., fig. 22, 



§ 'Report on the Genus Orbitolites,' p. 16. 



