﻿SPONGES.-HALLMANN. 



253 



sponge is held up before the hght, the partition between the 

 rows of "cells" appear as ribs tra\ ersing the sponge longi- 

 tudinally in a slightly radiating fashion. The consistency is 

 fairly soft and slightly brittle. 



The fibres are so densely surrounded by pigmented matter 

 that the section required to be decolorised in order to bring 

 them into view. The colour dissolves out in nitric acid as a 

 bright carmine which soon disappears, particularly on warm- 

 ing. The skeleton differs from that of the preceding specimen 

 in its much greater irregularity, but this is probably more 

 apparent than real and due to the fact that the connecting 

 fibres — owing to the dry state of the specimens and the conse- 

 quent absence of interfibral substance — are no less conspicuous 

 than the connecting fibres. In all other respects the two 

 sponges appear to be identical. 



Loc. — Oyster Bay, Tasmania, 30-40 fms. ("Endeavour"). 



Assuming the descriptions of Clathria elegantuht, Ridley 

 and Dendy, and Clathria piniforriiis, Carter,! to be correct in 

 detail, it might be said that IV. oxyphila forms a connecting 

 link between them. The three species agree very closely in 

 their characters ; but oxeote modifications of the megascleres 

 have not been mentioned for C elegantula, nor have chelae 

 been recorded for C. piniformis. It is, however, quite 

 possible that the typical specimen of W. oxypliiJa may 

 prove to belong to Carter's species, and the varietal specimen, 

 to Ridley and Dendy 's. 



Genus Ophlitaspongia, Bowerbank. 



In view of the existence of such a species as Clathria tran- 

 siens, sp. nov.- — in one of the forms of which, the accessory 

 styli are smooth — the definition of Ophlitaspongia^ as pro- 

 posed by Dendy, 2 needs amendment so as to restrict the genus 

 to species whose echinating and coring spicules (if both be 

 present) are similar or, at any rate, not definably different. 

 The amendment will probably necessitate the removal of O. 

 membfanacea, Thiele {vide p. 215), to Clathria; but, so far as 

 I know, it affects no other species of the genus. The definition 

 requires also to be modified in such a way as to clearly dis- 

 tinguish the genus from Echinochalina [q.v.). Ophlitaspongia 

 has commonly been spoken of as differing from Clathria in the 



1 Carter— Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (5), xvL. 1885, p. 354; Dendy— Proc. Eoy. 



Soc. Vict, (n.s.), viii., 1896, p. 34. 



2 Dendy— Proc. Roy. Soc. Vict., viii. (n.s.), 1896, p. 36. 



