CHAP. IX.] THE DEEP-SEA FAUNA. 413 



Entangled and borne along in the viscid streams 

 of Bathybius, we so constantly find a multitude of 

 minute calcareous bodies of a peculiar shape, that 

 the two were for long supposed to have some 

 mutual relation to one another. These small bodies, 

 which have been carefully studied by Huxley,^ 

 Sorby,^ Haeckel,^ Carter,* Gijmbel,^ and others, are 

 in shape somewhat like oval shirt-studs; There is 

 first a little oval disk about 0"01 mm. in length, with 

 an oblong rudely facetted elevation in the centre, 

 and round that, in fresh sj)ecimens, what seems to be 

 a kind of frill of organic matter, then a short neck, 

 and lastly a second smaller flat disk, like the disk 

 at the back of a stud. To these bodies, which are 

 met with in all stages of development, Professor 

 Huxley has given the name of ' coccoliths.' Some- 

 times they are found aggregated on the surface of 

 small transparent membranous balls, and these 

 Which seemed at first to have something to do with 

 the production of the ' coccoliths ' Dr. Wallich has 

 called ' coccospheres ' (Pig. 64). Professor Ernst 

 Haeckel has lately described a very elegant organ- 

 ism belonging to the radiolaria and apparently 

 allied to Thalassicolla, — Myxobrachia rhopalum, — and 

 at the ends of some curious diverging appendages 

 of this creature he has detected accumulations of 

 bodies closely resembling, if not identical with, the 

 coccoliths and coccospheres of the sea^bottom. These 



' Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, 1868, p. 203. 

 = Proceedings of the Sheffield Literary and Philosophical Society, 

 Octnher 1860. " Op. cit. 



* Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. 1871, p. 184. 

 5 Jahrhuch Miinch. ISTOy p. 753. 



