REPORT ON THE HEXACTINELLIDA. 239 



The specimen was found at Bequia, at a deptli of 1507 fathoms, on muddy 

 ground. 



Monsieur Filliol, in his preliminary review of the chief results of the voyages of the 

 " Travailleur" and of the " Talisman," ' gives the following brief notice in regard to the 

 genus Pheronema: — "Les Pheronema paraissent etre r^pandus dans tout I'Atlantique, dont 

 elles habitent en certaines points de tres grandes profondeurs. Communes sur la c6te du 

 Portugal, elles apparaissent encore plus nombreuses au large des cotes du Maroc et du 

 Senegal. Nous les avons prises a partir de 600 metres jusqu'a 2200 metres. Dans un 

 dragage execute h, 4789 metres le chalut a rapporte des debris d'une eponge brisee, qui 

 semblait avoir dii etre a un Pheronema. Les esp^ces nous ont paru devoir etre varices. 

 Certaines d'entre elles sont remarquables par un enorme developpement, alors que d'autres, 

 telles que les Pheronema Parfaiti {loc. cit. fig. 92), se font remarquer par leur transparence 

 et I'absence de collerette des spicules autour de I'oscule. La coloration des Pheronema, 

 que nous avons captures, etait brunatre, et nous n'avons jamais eu I'occasion d'observer la 

 belle coloration d'un rouge orange, dont M. Saville Kent a fait mention, h- propos d'une 

 espece de Pheronema qu'il avait capture dans les envii'ons de Gibraltar." 



Characters of the Genus. — The lower end of the cup- or goblet-shaped, thick- walled 

 body, is continued into a broad, not always sharply defined root-tuft of basal prostalia, 

 while from the lateral surface tufts of pleural prostalia project. The circular oscular 

 margin is surrounded by a cuS'-like fringe of freely projecting marginal prostalia, which 

 seem, however, to be absent in one species, — Pheronema annse, Leidy. The parenchyma 

 of the body contains uncinates. The basal tufts consist of tolerably elongated 

 hidentate anchors. The marginalia and many of the pleuralia end in club-shaped 

 thickenings. 



1. Pheronema annae, Leidy (PI. XLIL). 



The kindness of my esteemed fellow-worker 0. Schmidt of Strassburg, placed at my 

 disposal for examination a dry specimen of Pheronema annse, Leidy. Like Leidy's 

 original specimen, this form was got at Santa Cruz, W. L, from a depth of 180 or 248 

 fathoms. It is represented in natural size, from a photograph, on PI. XLIL fig. 1. The 

 body is about 11 cm. in length, and in the middle 5 cm. thick, exhibiting on the whole a 

 long, oval form, though the upper half is narrowed to a transversely truncated end, 2 cm. 

 in breadth. The broad lower portion is also somewhat truncate, with a breadth of about 

 3 cm., and from it there projects a number of slim, isolated tufts of basal spicules (5 to 6 

 cm. in length). Minute, slender bundles of shorter (2 to 3 cm.) straight, rod-hke spicules 

 are disposed radially, but in irregular distribution, over the whole lateral surface of the 

 sponge, without however anywhere forming a closed wreath. Nor is there any special 



' La vie au fond des Mere, 1885, p. 85. 



