BRITISH SPONGIAD^E. 33 



so unlike the faecal orifices of the other species, distinguishes 

 this at once, and removes the suspicion of its being a 

 variety of any other." 



Nearly the whole of the above description is incorrect, 

 the errors arising from the description having been made 

 from a dried and artificially compressed specimen. I have 

 been more fortunate in this respect than my late friend the 

 author of the ' History of the British Sponges/ having been 

 kindly presented with a specimen dredged in deep water 

 and preserved in spirit, in September, 1858, by my friend 

 Mr. George Hyndman, of Belfast. This beautiful little 

 specimen is based in a depression on a small fragment of 

 stone, the whole sponge being about six lines in height, 

 three lines consisting of a curved pedicel of nearly uniform 

 size, having a diameter of about one third of a line, and the 

 remainder of the body of the sponge assumes the form of a 

 regular ellipse, the greatest diameter of which is about a 

 line and a half. The body consists of numerous fistulas, 

 which spring from the apex of the solid pedicel and assume 

 a longitudinal direction, frequently anastomosing with each 

 other in their progress towards the distal extremity of the 

 body of the sponge. A portion of the fistulas of the interior 

 discharge their contents into a central cloacal cavity, which 

 is somewhat irregular in form, and gradually increases in 

 its diameter from its origin at the proximal end of the 

 body until it reaches nearly its distal termination, where 

 it expands into a large irregularly conical cavity, into the 

 base of which the longitudinal fistulas of the surface dis- 

 charge themselves, and at the apex of the cone and of the 

 body of the sponge there is a single circular mouth to the 

 cloaca of about the same diameter as that of one of the 

 fistulas of the sponge. I sliced off a portion of a dried 

 specimen of the sponge in a longitudinal direction, and 

 thereby obtained a view of a portion of the cloaca, but I 

 could not detect the slightest indication of internal armature 

 in that organ, nor could I in any part of the sponge find a 

 single spiculated triradiate spiculum. Nor is there any 

 indication of external defensive spicula at the mouth of the 

 cloaca. The whole of the surface of the interior of the 



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