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THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
appears to represent its northernmost limit. As remarked by Dr. Carpenter, these localities 
are all characterised by a low bottom-temperature, 37° Fahr. (2° - 8 C.), or less. The 
remaining localities are, — Setubal Bay, coast of Portugal, 64 fathoms ; the Mediterranean, 
near Carthagena; and the iEgean, 250 fathoms. The Rev. A. M. Norman states that he 
has “ received specimens from the Marquis da Monterosato, dredged in 100-200 fathoms 
off the Sicilian coast 1 ”; and, further, that during the dredging operations of “ le Travail- 
leur ” in the Bay of Biscay, specimens which “ equalled a sixpence in size ” were obtained 
at a depth of 1200 fathoms, in the deep ravine known as the Fosse de Cape Breton. 2 
Orbitolites tenuissima has not heretofore been recognised as a fossil species ; never- 
theless Costa (Paleontologia del regno di Napoli, part 2, pi. xvi. figs. 26-28) has 
figured two specimens which seem to place beyond question its existence in the later 
Tertiaries of Southern Italy. The drawings referred to are named Pavonina italica, and 
it is impossible to compare them with those in PL XY. of the present Report, especially 
fig. 7, or with the central portion of one of the figures given by Dr. Carpenter (Report 
on Orbitolites, pi. i. fig. 1), without the conviction that they are taken from specimens 
with almost precisely identical characters, although the former, like many of Costa’s 
illustrations, are somewhat lacking in detail. The fossil shells are obviously only 
fragments, a circumstance sufficiently accounted for by the extreme tenuity of the 
test. 3 
Orbitolites marginalis, Lamarck, sp. (PI. XY. figs. 1-5). 
Orbulites marginalis, Lamarck, 1816, Hist. Nat. Anim. s. Vert., vol. ii. p. 196, No. 1. 
Sorites orbiculus, Ehrenberg, 1839, Abhandl. d. k. Akad. Wiss. Berlin (for 1838), p. 131, pi. iii. 
fig. 2, a, b, c. 
Orbiculina (Orbitolites) complanata, Williamson, 1851, Trans. Micr. Soc. Lond., ser. 1, vol. iii. 
p. 115, pi. xvii. fig. 8; pi. xviii. figs. 9, 10. 
Orbitolites marginalis, Carpenter, 1856, Phil. Trans., p. 192, pi. ix. figs. 1-4, &c. 
„ complanata, Parker and Jones, 1860, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 3, vol. vi. p. 29, 
No. 32. 
„ marginalis, Carpenter, 1883, Report on the Genus Orbitolites, Zook Chalk Exp., part 
xxi. p. 20, pi. iii. figs. 1-7 ; pi. iv. figs. 1-5. 
Orbitolites marginalis resembles the allied Orbitolites tenuissima in the comparative 
simplicity of its structure, the chamberlets being arranged as in that species in a siugle 
1 Proc. Roy. Soc., 1876, vol. xxv. p. 211. 
2 Report Brit. Assoc., 1880, Swansea Meeting, p. 389. 
3 Costa appends the following remark to his description of the species, — “ La sua fragility e somma, onde rarissimi 
sono gli esemplari che abbiam potato raccorre meglio conservati, niuno essendovene senza qualche mancanza piii o 
meno sensibile.” Op cit., p. 180. 
The author states that specimens are not uncommon in the Tertiary marls of Reggio ; it is therefore probable that the 
species will be found again in the same or similar deposits. Should the view which I have taken prove correct, the 
specific name “ italica ” will of course take precedence of “tenuissima.” Costa himself appears to have been in great 
doubt about the Foraminiferal nature of the organism, and suggests that it may even belong to the vegetable kingdom. 
