267 



considering them as a Sponge that was surrounded by and provided 

 with a shelly case with a single terminal oscule. 



Being desirous of obtaining other opinions on the subject before 

 publishing any account of them, I transmitted the specimens to my 

 friend Dr. William Carpenter, stating my belief that they were a 

 new form of Rhueopod which had been mistaken by several natural- 

 ists for the shell of a Cirripede, giving him permission to take off 

 and examine one of the specimens, lie has most kindly Bent me 

 the following note. 



University Hall, April 23, 1858. 

 My dear Sir, 



Your guess was a very sagacious one. The structure of the shell 

 is most characteristically Foramini/erous, being riddled full of holes 

 like a Rotalia. In the interior of the only specimen I have laid open 

 was a brownish animal residuum full of Sponge spicules. Of course 

 there is no great improbability in the idea that the Sponge was para- 

 sitical ; but I am inclined to believe that this organism is the con- 

 necting link which I have long thought must exist between Sponges 

 and Foraminifera, and that it is in fact a Sponge whose integuments 

 have been consolidated into a Foraminiferous-like shell. You will 

 find that the interior is not one single undivided cavity, hut that it 

 is loculated ; and sections of the shell show a sort of areolatiou cor- 

 responding with the little bosses of the exterior. 



I do not think that you will satisfactorily elucidate the organiza- 

 tion of this creature, unless you have several sections made in dif- 

 ferent directions through the shell. I have limited myself to the 

 one which you gave me the liberty to break up, with which I have 

 done the best I could. I should like to have these (two) slides back 

 again, and to have one or two perfect specimens, if you could spare 

 me a corner of your block. 



Yours very truly, 



William Carpenter. 



This account exactly agrees with my previous examination, as it 

 was the knowledge that the shell was multilocular and minutely 

 foraminated like the multilocular Foraminifera, which induced me to 

 regard them as the case of a Rhizopod ; and the knowledge that the 

 cells were filled with a fleshy substance strengthened with spicula like 

 certain sponges, which induced me to believe that they were also 

 allied to the Porifera or Sponges ; and in my note to Dr. Carpenter 

 transmitted with the specimen on the 21st of April, 1S;">8, I stated 

 that "I regarded it as a Rhizopod of a new form ; it i> formed of a 

 number of cells each ending in a terminal pore. The cells look like 

 the ralyes of a Barnacle, and that is the reason that Mr. Cuming 

 and my German friend think it is one; but the examination of the 

 Structure at once proves that it cannot be one." 



Being strengthened by tin' opinion of P rofesso r Busk and Dr. Car- 

 penter, I have ventured to bring the subject before tin- Society; and 

 I propose to form for the Philippine specimens n L'mib which I shall 



