﻿NODOSARIA. 



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A good typical specimen of Nodosaria radicula has four or more segments, rarely as 

 many as eight ; the segments are sub-globular in form, regularly but only slightly 

 increasing in size, from the earliest to the last formed, and quite symmetrically joined end 

 to end. But, as might be expected, so very simple an organism is subject to almost as 

 many trifling variations as there are individual specimens, and these have been abundantly 

 made use of by systematists as the foundation of a multitude of " specific" names. 

 Putting aside the curved forms, the result of mere lateral inequality in the setting on of 

 the chambers, which have been supposed to constitute a distinct genus, it may be worth 

 while just to enumerate some of the modifications of the typical, straight shell that have 

 been thought worthy of specific separation. Thus d'Orbigny figures a specimen from the 

 White Chalk of the Paris basin, with only three chambers, and having a band of shell- 

 substance thickening the sutural lines, under the name Nodosaria limbala (' Mem. Soc. 

 Geol. Fr./ vol. iv, pi. 1, fig. 1). Roemer gives one of the short somewhat conical modi- 

 fications, which stand as intermediate to Nodosaria and Glandulina, the chambers less 

 globular than in the type and the sutures correspondingly less constricted, with the 

 name N. humilis (' Verstein. Norddeutsch. Kreid.,' pi. 15, fig. 6). Prof. Reuss in his 

 paper on the Chalk of Westphalia (' Sitzungsb. Akad. Wissensch. Wien,' vol. xl, pi. 1) 

 has drawings of two excellent typical specimens, the one as Nodosaria lepida (fig. 2) ; the 

 other, the first chamber of which is slightly mucronate, as N. concinna (fig. 3). The 

 same plate has a figure of a specimen with a larger number of chambers and an excentric 

 aperture named Dentalina acuminata (fig. 7), and one differing only in the oblique 

 mouth, as D. subrecta (fig. 10). It is to be noticed that these latter two, named 

 Dentalina, are as straight in contour as those assigned to the genus Nodosaria, and the 

 segments, except the terminal one, are in every respect similar, and similarly dis- 

 posed. An analogous set of figures is given by Neugeboren ('Denkschr. k. Akad. 

 Wiss. Wien,' vol. xii, pi. 1), under the names Glandulina elegans (fig. 5), Gl. Rettssi 

 (fig. 6), Nodosaria Beyricld (figs. 7 — 9), and N. ambigua (figs. 13 — 16). Professor 

 Costa reproduces the common, simple form as Nodosaria ovularis ('Foram. Foss. 

 Terz. Messina,' PI. I, fig. 8, 9) ; and it may be found under a number of different 

 appellations in M. Terquem's various memoirs on the Mesozoic Foraminifera of France. 

 It would be easy to extend this list almost indefinitely, for the same little organism has 

 been found in almost every fossiliferous marine deposit from the Permian epoch to the 

 present time, and has at every fresh appearance been greeted with a new name, often, as 

 already observed, with a good many. The general synonymy would form a list of great 

 length, much too long for insertion, the references given at the head of the notice are 

 therefore principally to names employed in memoirs upon Permian fossils, and they need 

 but little comment. At the same time it may be well, indeed it is clue to Dr. Richter 

 and Dr. E. E. Schmid, to allude individually to the varieties figured in their papers as 

 " species " which have been grouped together in the list of synonyms. Accurate copies of 

 their illustrative figures will be found in Plate X. 



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