60 DR. G. J. HINDE ON THE EADIOLAKIA IN THE [Feb. 1 899, 



rocks 64 species of radiolaria, belonging to 37 genera, were described, 

 but only 7 of these genera are common with those at Tamworth, 

 and no near relationship is apparent between the Devonian radio- 

 laria of Central and Northern Europe and those of the same period 

 in Australia. A similar want of affinity is also shown, if a compari- 

 son be made with the radiolaria of the Lower Culm or Carboniferous 

 described by Elist from the Harz, Sicily, Eussia, etc.,^ and by Hinde 

 & Pox from the South-west of England.^ 



The Tamworth radiolaria, however, show as a whole a genera 

 correspondence with the radiolarian fauna from the phosphorites 

 and siliceous shales of Ordovician (Lower Silurian) age occurring at 

 Cabrieres in Languedoc, which have been described by Eiist,^ and 

 also with that in the cherts of the Southern Uplands of Scotland of 

 a corresponding age.* In both these deposits the predominant 

 radiolarian forms belong to the Sphaeroidea with radial spines and 

 medullary tests. In the Scottish beds they appear to belong rather to 

 the group with spongiform than to that with regularly-latticed tests, 

 but some doubt is thrown on this feature from the poor preservation 

 of the fossils. In the same beds there are also some of the peculiar 

 spicular bodies referred to primitive forms of Plectoidea, of a similar 

 character to those at Tamworth. And finally it may be mentioned 

 that the radiolarian fauna of Cabrieres and Scotland resembles that 

 of New South Wales in the absence of examples of the Cyrtoidea. 



The same features which distinguish the New South Wales 

 Devonian radiolaria from those in the Palaeozoic deposits of other 

 areas serve still more strongly to mark them off from the radiolaria 

 of Mesozoic and Tertiary rocks. In no respect is this difference 

 more manifest than in the apparent absence of the Cyrtoidea, which 

 are so numerously represented in the Jurassic, Cretaceous, and 

 Tertiary rocks that Haeckel stated in the Challenger Eeport ^ 

 that the majority of all the fossil radiolaria then known belonged 

 to this group. This observation was made at a time when the 

 existence of Palasozoic radiolaria had been scarcely recognized, but 

 the evidence since obtained from Scotland, Prance, Germany, and 

 now from New South Wales, points to the conclusion that the 

 predominant forms of the Palaeozoic radiolaria belonged to the 

 Sphaeroidea with medullary tests and radial spines, and that the 

 Cyrtoidea were either not represented or formed but a small minority 

 of these organisms in the earlier radiolarian rocks. 



Y. POSSILS ASSOCIATED WITH THE EaDIOLAEIA. 



Judging from the rock-specimens that I have examined, other 

 fossils besides radiolaria are extremely rare in the same beds, and 



^ Palseontographica, vol. xxxviii (1892). 



2 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. li (1895) pp. 609-668. 



2 Palaeontographica, vol. xxxviii (1892) pp. 114, 122. 



4 Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 6, vol. vi (1890) pp. 40-59. 



' Zool. vol. xviii, pt. ii ( 1887) p. 1126. 



