REPORT ON THE FOR AMINIFER A . 
533 
cost*. The ribs seldom or never extend the entire length of the shell, but usually 
commence at the primordial end and run either parallel to the long axis, or more 
frequently in a somewhat oblique direction, as shown in Williamson’s drawings, ( loc . cit., 
figs. 46, 47). 
It would appear from the distribution-list that Vaginulina linearis is only really at 
home in comparatively shallow water on the Atlantic shores of Europe. The species has 
been obtained from three Challenger Stations, namely: — off Bermuda, 435 fathoms; off 
Culebra Island, 390 fathoms; and off the coast of South America, south-east of 
Pernambuco, 350 fathoms ; but the specimens are few in number and hardly ever typical 
as to minor characters; whilst in some portions of the British seas, e.g., Berwick Bay, 
Shetland, and the Hebrides, at depths of 15 to 90 fathoms it is one of the commoner 
Foraminifera. It occurs also on the western coast of Norway and of France. 
In the fossil condition it has been found at least as far back as the London Clay; and 
specimens, identical in all important characters, are recorded from several microzoic 
formations of Middle and Later Tertiary age. 
Vaginulina patens, n. sp. (PI. LX VII. figs. 15, 16). 
Test elongate, complanate, broadest near the middle, tapering to a point at the 
apertural end ; aboral end broad or rounded, but finishing in a short stout spine. Dorsal 
edge thin, nearly straight, ventral margin thickest near the middle, square or somewhat 
bicarinate. Segments about twelve in number ; long, narrow, slightly bent ; obliquely 
set or nearly erect. Length, ^th inch (0’74 mm.). 
This is one of the complanate or Planularian forms of Vaginulina. The test bears 
a strong resemblance to that of Planularia costata, Cornuel (Mem. Soc. geol. France, 
ser. 2, vol. iii. Mem. III. p. 253, pi. ii. figs. 5-8), from which it differs chiefly in the 
absence of sutural limbation. The distinction is not one of much importance, and the 
recent specimens might without impropriety have been assigned to Cornuel’s species, but 
that the term “costata” which refers to the raised sutural lines, is likely to lead to con- 
fusion as applied to a member of a genus, some of the varieties of which are costate in the 
ordinary sense, that is to say, have parallel longitudinal ribs. Moreover, the same specific 
name had previously been used by d’Orbigny in connection with the genus Vaginulina, 
though for what particular form does not appear. 
The figured specimens are from the Philippine Islands, 95 fathoms, and two or three 
examples have been found off ftaine Island, Torres Strait, 155 fathoms; but the species 
has not been met with elsewhere in the recent condition. 
Cornuel’s Planularia costata is one of the fossil species from the Lower Cretaceous beds 
of the Department of Haute-Marne in France. 
(ZOOL. CHALL. ESP. — PART XXII. 1884 .) 
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