REPORT ON THE HEXACTINELLIDA. 237 



Pheronema graiji, Leidy, Holtenia carpenteri, Wyvillc Thomson, and other forms in a 

 single family — the Pheronemada3, which might be characterised by the " ovate globular or 

 purse-like body, with a large internal cavity and outer walls formed of hexradiate spicules 

 placed side by side, producing a tesselated surface formed of stars." For Pheronema 

 (jrayi. Gray moreover, proposed the new generic name Callisphaera, and for Holtenia 

 saccus, 0. Schmidt, the generic name Vazella. 



A somewhat different diagnosis was given by Gray in 1872' for his family 

 Pheronemadas in the words : — " Sponge oblong ; outer surface formed of hexradiate 

 spicules, lower surface with elongate filiform spicides ending in three recurved lobes." 

 In this family he distinguished (a) those forms with " anchoring filaments arising in a 

 circle of tufts around the base of the sponge," such as Pheronema, Leidy and Kent = 

 Holtenia, Thomson, and (h) those with anchoring spicules arising from all parts of the 

 sponge, such as Callisphaera = Pheronema grayi, Kent, and Vazella = Holtenia, 0. 

 Schmidt. 



Under the designation of Laharia hemisphserica, Gray described, in 1873,^ a sponge 

 from Cebu, one of the Philippine Islands, sent through A. B. Meyer to the British 

 Museum, with the following brief diagnosis : — " It is hemispherical, about 2 inches in 

 diameter, and rather more than 1 inch high, mth a rather smooth outer surface, and a 

 rather deep regular concavity on the upper surface, which seems formed of interlacing 

 spicules, leaving considerable spaces between them. The outer surface and its margin are 

 scattered with distant, but rather regularly placed cylindrical perforations, from the 

 centre of which are emitted tufts of elongated filiform spicules, diverging in all directions 

 from the surface of the sponge. The middle of the underside deeply concave, with a 

 well-defined edge, from which is emitted a very large tuft of very numerous crowded 

 spicules, forming a kind of bi'ush, each filament when perfect ending in three short 

 recurved spines." 



A detailed description of the same specimen was afterwards given by Carter' in 

 which he also described the form and distribution of the various siliceous spicules, whUe 

 the insignificant points of diff"erence between these and the corresponding spicules of 

 the genera Hyalonema, Holtenia, and Pheronema were pointed out. 



In his great work on the Hexactinellida which Carter published in 1873,* and which 

 contains a particularly detailed account of the form of individual siliceous spicules, 

 Pheronema annw, Leidy, Pheronema grayi, Kent, Holtenia carpenteri, WyvUle Thomson 

 (as well as Meyerina claviformis, Gray, which is further-referred to below) are united into 

 one group, which is characterised as follows : — " Species more or less globular, excavated, 

 provided with anchoring spicules, and characterised by the birotulate flesh spicule above 



^Ann. and May. Nat. Hist, ser. 4, vol. ix. p. 450. 



^ Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 5, vol .xi. p. 235. 



' Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hut., ser. 4, vol. xi. pp. 275-288. 



* Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 4, vol. xii. pp. 349-472. 



