A. The Radiolarian fauna collected by the Challenger on the voyage from the Cape to Melbourne, shows in part, namely, from Station 156 to Station 158, very peculiar and characteristic composition; in particular, the Diatom ooze of Station 157 passes over in great part into a Radiolarian ooze, mainly composed of #Sphærellaria#. This is worthy of a more thorough investigation than I was able, owing to lack of material and time, to give it.
B. The remarkably pure Radiolarian ooze of Zanzibar, discovered by Ehrenberg in 1859, was the earliest known recent example of that deposit. It was brought up by Captain Pullen of the English man-of-war "Cyclops," from a depth of 2200 fathoms, between Zanzibar and the Seychelles, and "under a magnifying power of 300 diameters, showed at the first glance a mass of almost pure Polycystina, such as no sample of a deep-sea deposit has hitherto shown. It is very noticeable that in the whole of this mass of living forms, no calcareous shells are to be seen" (Ehrenberg, L. N. 24, pp. 148, 149).
C. For the most important material from the Indian Ocean, I am indebted to Captain Heinrich Rabbe of Bremen, who during many voyages in the Indian Ocean, in his ship "Joseph Haydn," made numerous collections in different localities with the tow-net and the trawl, and admirably preserved the rich collections thus made. The greatest abundance of Radiolaria was found in those { cli}obtained to the east of Madagascar, and next in those from the neighbourhood of the Cocos Islands. I take this opportunity of expressing my thanks to Captain Rabbe for the liberality with which he placed all this valuable material at my disposal.
D. On my voyage from Aden to Bombay, and thence to Ceylon (1881), and especially on my return journey from Ceylon, between the Maldive Islands and Socotra (1882), I carried on a number of experiments with a surface net, which yielded a rich fauna of pelagic animals, and among them many new species of Radiolaria, for observation. On several nights when the smooth surface of the Indian Ocean, unrippled by any wind, shone with the most lovely phosphorescent light, I drew up water from the surface with a bucket, and obtained a rich booty. A number of other new species of Radiolaria from very various parts of the Indian Ocean I obtained from the alimentary canal of pelagic animals, such as Medusæ, Salpæ, Crustacea, &c. Although the total number of Radiolaria known to me from the Indian Ocean is much less than from the Atlantic and Pacific, there are several new genera and numerous species among them, which show that a careful study of this fauna will be of wide interest.