292 DREDGING REPORT, 1862. 
this, specimens of twenty-four forms were found. It is almost 
impossible to ascertain the value of apparently waste matter on 
ship-board, and in future nothing will be cast aside until 
thoroughly examined. 
On the second excursion a portion of the produce of the 
dredging off Coquet Island was lost by accident; but 
sufficient remained to yield to the microscope twenty-nine forms. 
Cautioned by previous losses, greater care was afterwards 
taken, and the various hauls in Berwick Bay gave, as a result, 
no less than fifty varieties or one half of Professor Williamson’s 
list. 
The total number of forms taken was fifty-five, of which 
thirty-two had not been previously observed on our coast, a 
result in every respect gratifying. Further details with respect 
to these will appear in my catalogue of the local species, now in 
progress. 
One or two facts, however, may perhaps, be worthy of note 
here, viz. :— 
The great abundance and beauty of the one-celled flask-like 
forms (Lagena and Entosolema), of which almost all the 
varieties known to Britain were found. 
The extraordinary prevalence of the genus Dentalina, especially 
in Berwick Bay, occurring in every gradation, from the extreme 
form of D. subarcuata, to the extreme of D. legumen; no line 
of demarcation being perceptible between the slender, tapering 
shell, with ventricose segments, and the more robust, generally 
curved form known as D. legumen. 
On the same ground Polymorphina frequently contracts the 
luxuriant irregular growth, figured in Williamson as Polymor- 
phina lactea var. fistulosa. 
It should be remembered in judging of the amount accom- 
plished, that the area compassed by those dredgings, the results 
of which were available for examination for this special class of 
organisms wasa very limited one; that, indeed, almost the whole 
accrued from a single day’s operations in one locality. 
