(Proceedings Belfast Naturalists' Field Club. — Appendix 1880-1881.) 



FORAMINIFERA FOUND DURING THE BELFAST 

 NATURALISTS' FIELD CLUB'S EXCURSION 



TO 



SOUTH DONEGAL, 1880. 



Plate Fill, (upper half), figs. 1-5. 



fHE objects contemplated by the Club in visiting the Southern Coast of 

 County Donegal embraced several departments of Natural Science, 

 especially botany and geology, and as the time was limited it was im- 

 possible to devote much attention to dredging. Three shore gatherings, and 

 four hauls of the dredge were, however, secured, and the present list is the 

 result of an examination of material thus obtained. This list is not given 

 as exhaustive of the locality visited, but simply as a contribution to 

 our knowledge of the Irish rhizopodal fauna. It will also serve to indicate 

 that rich results are likely to reward more systematic investigations in 

 this quarter. Of the shore gatherings, that from Muckros was the only one 

 which yielded a good supply of Microzoa. It was collected in a small sandy 

 bay adjoining the singularly wild and remarkable precipices of Muckros Head. 

 As is usual in the sandy bays open to the Atlantic, along our Western Coast 

 Truncatulina lobatula greatly preponderated over all other forms. Haplo- 

 phragmium globigeriniforme, Lagena costata, and Polymorphina myristiformis 

 were large and abundant at Muckros, and also in the dredgings taken in the 

 open sea, off the headlands of Slieve League, whilst the same forms were rare, 

 and in poor condition in the more sheltered waters of Killybegs Harbour. The 

 four dredgings from Killybegs and Slieve League might, with little disadvan- 

 tage, have been recorded as from two stations. For example, the two gather- 

 ings from Killybegs, one taken in seven fathoms water, inside the harbour, 

 the other in seventeen fathoms, a few hundred yards outside the Lighthouse, 

 were very similar, both in nature of bottom and foraminiferous yield. The 

 material dredgod at both places was soft turfy ooze, yielding Microzoa in great 

 profusion, and differing merely in that the one gathered outside the Light* 



