4. Caminosphæra dendrophora, n. sp. (Pl. [7], fig. 1).
Shell spherical, with a variable number (eight to twelve) of long cylindrical tubes, irregularly branched and scattered, nearly as long as the diameter of the shell. Every tube with two to six (commonly three to four) branches of different sizes. Mouth of the branches dilated, funnel-like; the edges irregularly dentated or lacerated. Pores between the tubes half as broad as these, irregularly roundish, twice as broad as their bars. Ten to twelve pores in the half meridian of the shell.
Dimensions.—Diameter of the shell 0.12 to 0.15, of the pores 0.006 to 0.01; length of the tubules 0.1 to 0.13, breadth of them 0.02 to 0.025.
Habitat.—Central Pacific, Station 266, depth 2750 fathoms.
Genus 40. Solenosphæra,[[62]] n. gen.
Definition.—Collosphærida with simple shells, the pores of which are prolonged into external simple radial tubuli with fenestrated wall; outer mouth of the tubuli truncated, smooth.
The genus Solenosphæra differs from Siphonosphæra in the fenestration of the external radial tubes. A large number of shells, appertaining to this genus, were already described by Ehrenberg, and disposed in five different genera corresponding to the different numbers of the tubuli:—Disolenia with two tubes, Trisolenia with three tubes, Tetrasolenia with four tubes, Pentasolenia with five tubes, Polysolenia with six or more tubes. All these five genera are without value, as those different numbers of tubes occur frequently intermingled in the individual cells of one and the same colony, wherever the form and structure of the tubes is inherited with sufficient constancy to determine the species.
Subgenus 1. Solenosphactra, Haeckel.
Definition.—Tubuli of the shell cylindrical or nearly cylindrical, the outer and inner apertures nearly of the same size.
1. Solenosphæra variabilis, Haeckel.