SPONGES. 219 



Bowekbank's figures certainly represent a form which is intermediate in external 

 appearance between what I regard as the typical cup-shaped P. holdsivorthi and the 

 fbliaceons P. papyracea, and it is quite possible that the two are not more than 

 varietally distinct. 



Bowerbank cpiotes from a letter of Mr. Holdsworth the following interesting 

 particulars : " Spongionella is only found on the 9-fathom line of the large pearl- 

 bank. It is attached to pieces of dead coral or stones. When alive it is of a dark 

 brown ; and when taken out of the water it looks exactly like dirty wet leather, If 

 you soak a bit of one of the dark specimens* you will see it with as nearly as 

 possible the original appearance. This sponge is so strictly confined to the locality 

 above mentioned, that its discovery by the divers is considered the strongest evidence 

 that the outer part of the bank has been reached." 



Professor Herdman adds, as the result of his much more extended examination of 

 the Gulf of Manaar, that " although very characteristic of the Periya Paar and other 

 deeper grounds west of the Cheval Paar, still it is not absolutely confined to these, 

 hut may be found elsewhere, as on the Muttuvaratu Paar." 



R..N. 30 ; and other specimens (dry). (Periya Paar, Muttuvaratu Paar, &c, Gulf 

 of Manaar.) 



Hircinia, Nardo. 



Spongiidse with a coarse-meshed skeleton network usually containing much foreign 

 matter. Denser aggregations of the network along the primary lines frequently 

 form trellis-like compound fibres. Filaments are usually present in the ground- 

 substance. 



Hircinia fusca, Carter Plate XIV., fig. 1. 



1880, Hircinia fusca, Carter (4), not Hircinia fusca, Ridley (16) and Lendenfeld (66). 



This is a very remarkable and well-characterised species. It was originally 

 described by Carter in less than four lines, and the species was styled " provisional." 

 It is, therefore, little wonder that Ridley and Lendenfeld have erred in identifying 

 certain slender branching sponges from other localities with the Ceylon species. 

 Carter's description of the external form should, however, have been sufficient to 

 pievent any such misconception, for a slender, branched, cylindrical sponge, narrower 

 at the base, and with conuli only 1 millim. high, can hardly be identical with one 

 which is described as " massive, digitate, branched lobate, cactiform on the surface." 

 In addition to these characters, the dark brown colour and the resemblance to Aplysina 

 fusca, noted by Mr. Carter, leave no doubt in my mind that Professor Herdman's 

 specimens really belong to the species in question, an opinion which is rendered almost 



* Professor Herdman's dry specimens are very pale in colour. 



2 F 2 



