﻿TROCHAMMINA. 



77 



Trochammina gordialis, Jones and Parker. PI. Ill, figs. 1 — 3. 



Trochammina squamata, gordialis, Jones and Parker, 1860. Quart. Journ. Geo]. 



Soc, vol. xvi, p. 304. 



— gordialis, Parker and Jones, 1862. In Carpenter's Introd. Foram. 



p. 141. 



— squamata, var. gordialis, Id., 1865. Phil. Trans., vol. civ, p. 408. 



— proteus, Karrer, 1866 (in part). Sitzungsb. k. Akad. Wien, vol. Hi, 



p. 494, pi. i, figs. 1—8. 



— squamata, var. gordialis, Jones, Parker, and Brady, 1866. Monogr. 



Foram. Crag, p. 26. 



— gordialis, Jones, Parker, and Kirkby, 1869. Ann. and Mag. Nat. 



Hist., ser. 4, vol. iv, p. 390, pi. xiii, figs. 7, 8. 



— — Brady, 1873. Mem. Geo). Survey Scotland ; Expl. Sheet 



23, p. 85, &c. 



Characters. — Test convoluted, rounded, irregular; composed of a tube of nearly 

 even diameter, coiled upon itself in an irregular manner and in varying directions. The 

 tube (as shown by transverse section) variable in shape ; sometimes contracted at irregular 

 intervals, twisted, or spuriously septate. Diameter, yjjofch inch to -^-th or more (0 - 25 to 

 0-85 millim.). 



Whether the trivial name "gordialis" was originally. selected for this curious little 

 organism, on the ground of its exterior resemblance to a coiled and complicated knot, or 

 with reference to its morphological intricacy, is of little moment, for in either case it is 

 quite appropriate. The form designated is the centre of an anomalous sub-group 

 occupying in its modifications the wide area between the compact closely coiled, often 

 almost conical Tr. charoides, and the regular, spiral, septate type Tr. squamata. Dr. Karrer, 

 in his interesting memoir on the Foraminifera of the older beds of the Vienna Sandstone 

 Series, above quoted, associates under one specific name forms which with us have been 

 distributed under three quasi-specific heads, viz., Tr. squamata, Tr. gordialis, and Tr. 

 charoides. Whilst recognising and cordially agreeing in the general views which have 

 guided him in this course, it appears more consistent with the plan hitherto adopted in 

 the present paper, to retain trivial names for the more important and more permanent 

 modifications of each type, without insisting on a standard of specific distinctness, which, 

 however well adapted to animals of higher organization, it would be vain to attempt to 

 apply to the Rhizopoda. Nor is the method which has hitherto been followed by my col- 

 leagues and myself in this respect inconsistent with the constant endeavour to simplify the 

 nomenclature of the Foraminifera by expunging the multitude of useless trivial names 



