114 THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



words : — " Sponge body, vase- or sack-like, of large dimensions, expanding superiorly, 

 often upwards of two feet in height; composed of interlacing fasciculi of long filiform 

 fibres or spicula. Individual filiform spicula smooth, finely canaliculate, varying in 

 diameter from ^^jij^th to 5^xjth of an inch, occasionally possessing a central or excentral 

 inflation, as at plate Ixiv. fig. 4. Hexradiate spicula of two types, the one large, with 

 smooth alternate radii, the other of smaller but more varying size, with obtuse extremities 

 and entirely erectly spinous surfaces. Scattered through this sponge there also occa- 

 sionally occur simple alternate spicula, clavate and erectly spined at either extremity (see 

 plate Ixiv. fig. 5). Average diameter of the minute multiradiate spicule ^-^th of an inch." 

 From the fact that the base was absent in all the specimens, Saville Kent was led to 

 conclude that the lower portion of the cavity, where the sponge is fixed by its base to 

 the sea-bottom, was filled with mud, and that it must thus have been constantly torn 

 oft' during the process of fishing up the sj)onge. 



Fig. 3.—Asconcma sctuhaUn.sc, Sav. Kent, one-eiglith the natural size, from Wyville Tliomson's Depths of the Sea, p. 429. 



A giant specimen of this species, with a diameter of 3 feet, was dredged by Gwyn 

 Jeff"reys' ofi" Cape St. Vincent on the coast of Portugal, on rocky ground and from a 

 depth of 374 fathoms. 



In his Classification of Sponges,"^ Gray forms Kent's genus Asconema into a special 

 family, the Asconematidas, with characters essentially similar to those noted by Kent in 

 regard to the genus and the single known species. A large and comparatively well- 



■ Proc. Roy. Inst., No. 54, p. 258, 1871. ^^ Ann. and May. Nat. Hist., ser. 4, vol. i.\. p. 458, 1872. 



