114 OKHAMANDAL MARINE ZOOLOGY REPORT PART II 



fication with Baer's species. The flagellate chambers are approximately spherical 

 and about 0-03 mm. (or a little more) in diameter, scattered rather sparsely in 

 a compact ground-substance densely charged with minute, spherical, granule- 

 bearing cells, measuring up to about 0-008 mm. in diameter. There is a fairly 

 thick ectosome, more or less interrupted by the spacious subdermal cavities and 

 also containing small granule-cells. 



Throughout the sponge, but especially in parts of the ectosome, where they 

 are densely crowded together, occur numerous large, spherical cells, filled with 

 granules of various sizes and each with a compact, deeply staining nucleus of 

 moderate size. The diameter of the entire cell is about 0-025 mm. ; of the 

 nucleus about 0-008 mm. These cells resemble immature ova, but they may be 

 merely large amoebocytes charged with food-material or excretory products. 



Although Baer has figured both external form and spicules in the case of the 

 Zanzibar sponge, I have thought it desirable to add illustrations of the Indian 

 form. 



Previously known Distribution. Zanzibar (Baer). 



Register Numbers, Locality, &c. II. 6, 11 (altogether a considerable number of 

 pieces), probably off Poshetra, January 7, 1906. 



23. Siphonochalina crassifibra Dendy. 



Siphonochalina crassifibra Dendy [1889]. 

 Siphonochalina communis (pars) Dendy [1905]. 



The best of the two specimens in the collection closely resembles in external 

 form Carter's Siphonochalina (Patuloscula) procumbens from the West Indies, a 

 figure of which will be found in my memoir on the West Indian Chalinina3 [1890]. 

 It consists of a spreading base from which a dozen or more tubes rise obliquely 

 upwards, branching and anastomosing with one another to a slight extent. The 

 tubes are subcylindrical, about 50 mm. in height and 12 or 14 mm. in diameter, 

 and each terminates in a wide, circular vent about 6 mm. in diameter. They are 

 thus considerably smaller than in the type. The surface is smooth but finely 

 granulated. 



In skeletal peculiarities the specimens exaggerate the distinguishing character 

 of the type. The main skeleton is a rectangularly or polygonally meshed network 

 of fairly stout fibre, almost completely filled with the very numerous, close-packed 

 spicules, so that there is only a thin investment of spongin. The primary fibres 

 are about 0-05 mm. in diameter and the secondaries only a little less. The 

 dermal skeleton in the best specimen, from which this description is taken, is 

 chiefly a unispicular reticulation, in which the spicules are held together by very 

 pale-coloured spongin, with a much coarser subdermal reticulation formed by the 



