44 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol.77 



nioryhina ladea in their monograph of the Genus Polymorphina. 

 The,y apparently fixed the species very well, but they placed many 

 different species in the synonymy of Polymorphina lactea, which led 

 later authors into confusion, and since the publication of their paper 

 the name Polymorphina lactea has been used very often, and accord- 

 ingly the species has been mistaken. Probably no other species in 

 Foraminifera has been more misunderstood than the present one. 



\We have examined shallow sea foraminiferal material obtained from 

 off England, Ireland, and Iceland and isolated many specimens 

 which can be identified with Polymorphina lactea, which are tolerably 

 definite in their essential characters — ventricose test with depressed 

 sutures, the elongate chambers arranged in a contraclockwise, quin- 

 queloculine series — but often the test tends to become compressed by 

 losing the quinqueloculine arrangement of chambers, that is, the 

 later chambers have a tendency to be arranged in a sigmoid series. 



GvMulina deplanata, described by Reuss in 1856 from the upper 

 Oligocene of Cassel, Germany, is a compressed variety of the present 

 species. It is rather common in the sand of Cassel, and we have 

 many specimens from Cassel which show the same range of variation 

 as does Guttulina lactea in a series of Recent specimens. 



Distribution. — This is one of the most common species found in the 

 shallow sea off England, Iceland, and Ireland. In the fossil state it 

 is not as common as in the Recent. We have the species from the 

 following localities : 



Recent. — Ten miles off Glencoe, southwest Ireland, 53 fathoms; 

 N.ymph Bank, south of Cork Harbor, Ireland, 52,^ fathoms; off 

 Bantry Bay, southwest Ireland, 100 fathoms; coast of Belgium; 

 Coast of Iceland; Labrador; bathing beach, Newport, R. I.; Dry 

 Tortugas, Fla., 18 fathoms; Montego Bay, Jamaica; Albatross D2112, 

 Caribbean, 15^ fathoms; D2614, east coast United States, 16 fathoms; 

 D4856, coast of Japan, 898 fathoms; D5311, Philippines. 



Pliocene, — Japan, Natsukawa, Province of Echigo. Italy, Castel 

 Arquato. 



Miocene. — France, Burdigalien inferieur, Moulin de I'Eglise, 

 Saiicats; Le Coquillat, Leognan. 



Oligocene. — Germany, Ahnatal, near Cassel; Hildesheimer Wald, 

 Dickholzen, Hanover. 



Eocene. — France, Lutetien, Parnes (Les Boves) ; Lutetien moyen, 

 Grignon. 



