WHAT IS BATHYBIUS? 
357 
Marsupites we have the Ehizocrinus. The Ananchytes and 
Galerites are represented by Cidarites and Spatangi; amongst 
star-fishes Tosia (Goniaster) has given place to Ophiocoma. For 
the chambered Cephalopods we have the modern cuttle-fishes, 
whilst the Saurians and Ganoid fishes of the Cretaceous age have 
left no descendants in these Atlantic depths, their places being 
taken, in all probability, by the more familiar and much more 
useful codfish. 
The zoological affinities of Bathybius are not very difficult to 
understand, though the young student is apt to become bewil- 
dered by the growing number of classifications of the Protozoa 
that are being offered for his acceptance, and the multitude of 
new terms with which, in consequence of these new classifications, 
our journals have become loaded. The last of these arrange- 
ments is that of Hackel, who has separated the Protozoa, under 
the name of Protista, equally from plants on the one hand and 
from animals on the other. He regards them as the common 
starting-point from which, in accordance with Darwinian ideas, 
both plants and animals have derived their origin. Without 
necessarily accepting this creation of a third organic kingdom, 
we may beneficially recognise Hackel’s division of the Amseban 
section of the Protozoa into two groups, viz., the Monera and 
the Protoplasta ; the former comprehending those Amaebae which 
exhibit an uniform granular sarcode without any trace of or 
differentiation into special organs, and the latter including those 
types in which we have such special structures in the form of 
contractile vesicles, nuclei, or other differentiated appendages. 
So far as the structure of the sarcode is concerned, Bathybius is 
apparently a true Moner, and such its discoverer considers it to 
be. At the same time, the existence in connection with it of 
Coccoliths and Cyatholiths indicates the necessity for separating 
it from Hackel’s other Monera, which have no such special- 
appendages. But the time has not arrived for determining the 
absolute relations of these objects. New types, as Hackel him- 
self admits, are being discovered, rendering modifications of his 
groups necessary. Meanwhile there can be no question that 
Bathybius is the lowest of those known Protozoa, which, like 
the Foraminifera, secrete calcareous elements. Eemembering 
the extent to which the sarcode is diffused through the mud of 
the Atlantic, there appears much that is suggestive and im- 
portant in the observation of Dr. Carpenter, that, had its power 
of secreting a calcareous framework been somewhat increased, 
so that instead of detached structures in the form of Coccoliths, 
&c., it had produced a continuous calcareous mass, it would 
have given us a living prototype of the Laurentian Eozoon. The 
discovery of this widely and continuously diffused Bathybius 
strongly sustains Dr. Carpenter in his conviction of the animal 
origin of that primseval structure. 
