1887.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 227 



As circumstances prevented personal exploration in that direction, 

 repeated efforts have been made to enlist the assistance of intending 

 visitors, in the search for them ; and much disappointment was felt 

 when one friend, a most successful collector in other lines of natural 

 history, reported that he could find none, attributing his ftiilure and 

 their apparent absence to the abundance of confervse covering every 

 probable place of their growth. 



Since these failures Mr. Mills has made two visits to Florida; 

 both during the latter part of our winter season, say from February 

 to April ; and the experience gained in many Northern waters has 

 helped him to success in these. He has gathered several familiar 

 species of Spongilla, Meyenia, Heteromeyenia, and Tubella, beside 

 the two novel forms just described. The first of these, M. millsii,. 

 approaches 31. fluviatilis, but differs from any of its varieties in the 

 character of its rotules, which, instead of being deeply cut into rays, 

 are delicately fringed or lacinulated like those of the smaller class 

 of birotulates in H. ryderii. (Compare PL X, fig. ii, with PI. XI, 

 fig. V. c. c. c.) 



The finest specimen of 31. sxibdivisa grew upon the bark of a 

 submerged pine log in the St. John's River, near Palatka, and 

 covered it to the extent of two or more square feet, by an average 

 of one half or three fourths of an inch in thickness. Its peculiarities 

 are perhaps sufficiently stated above, but I remember being much 

 impressed by the vitreous appearance mentioned, as suggesting that 

 of the tropical South American forms of Tubella, Parmula and 

 Uruguaya. A further search at points nearer the Southern ex- 

 tremity of the peninsula may give us some of these. 



(11) Meyenia (Spongilla) baileyi, Bk. Proc. Zool Soc. etc. 1863, p. 451. 



"Sponge coating; surface smooth? Oscula and pores inconspicuous. 

 Dei'mal membrane spiculous; s^iicula fusiform-acerate, entirely 

 sj)ined : spines of the middle cylindrical, truncated, very long and 

 lai'ge. Skeleton spicula subfusiform-acerate, rather slender. Inter- 

 stitial membranes spiculous; spicula same as those of the dermal 

 membrane. Ovaria globular, smooth, abundantly spiculous ; spicula 

 arrano-ed in lines radiatino; from the centre to the circumference of 

 the ovary; birotulate; rotulje irregularly and deeply cleft at the 

 margins, incurvate; shaft very long, cylindrical, entirely spined; 

 spines conical. Color in the dried state dark green." Bowerbank. 



"Hab. A stream on Canterbury Road, West Point, New York." 



(See remarks as to Heteromeyenia repens.) 



