PORIFERA. II. 



107 



Armauer Hansen has not recognized this fact, as their exterior shows it plainly enough, and the 

 spicules are the same. In arctica he has found sigmata, which shows that he has examined a piece 

 of the terminal part of the papilla. When he also mentions anc. - 3 for this species it is not correct, 

 such ancorse are not found. Armauer Hansen does not in any of his descriptions render any 

 account of the fact that there are two forms of ancorce. Although clavata is the one first described 

 I have thought it correct to use the name gigantea, as this name has been given to a whole speci- 

 men of the sponge, and to this belongs also a recognizable figure, while the other species have been 

 established on small fragments. I have likewise examined the type specimen of Fristedt's Clado- 

 rhiza nobilis, so that the identification is sure; otherwise his description and figures show plainly enough 

 that the question is of the present species. Fristedt draws himself the attention to the resemblance, 

 and the only distinguishing character he mentions is that his species, in contradistinction to that of 

 Armauer Hansen, is hollow; the case is, as might be supposed, that the body is torn from the 

 axis, the consequence of which is that the species apparently is hollow; as the body and the axis are 

 easily separated, a tearing out of the axis is an easy thing. Fristedt gives the greatest length of 

 the needles to cro,"™; that he has not found any longer needles corresponds with the fact that he has 

 not had the axis, in which the longest needles occur; otherwise I have in his specimen found needles 

 up to i-7 min long. In contradistinction to Armauer Hansen, Fristedt has found the spicules of 

 the coating of the stalk; he does not mention, however, in what manner they occur. As to the occur- 

 rence of the skeletal spicules he expresses himself in a very obscure way saying: «These spicules are 

 placed both in the bod}' and in the arms nearest the central cavities*. As he does not mention the 

 way of occurrence of the spicules of the stalk-coating, I suppose it to be this expression that has led 

 Tops en t to suppose (Resultats du Voyage du S. Y. Belgica, Spongiaires, 26) that these spicules occur 

 through the whole height of the sponge. That they only form a stalk-coating also in Fristedt's 

 specimen is seen from the figure, which shows a dark-coloured layer on the small part of the stalk 

 that is present, and also the examination proved it to be the fact. As mentioned by Fristedt, some 

 of the papilla; anastomose; it is an interesting fact that this feature is also found here as in several 

 Cladorli /cc?-species; it has not been observed in the specimens before me. Fristedt says that the 

 large ancorse have more teeth than the small ones; this statement must be due to an error, neither 

 is it seen in the figure; otherwise he does not mention the number of teeth. — The Cladorhiza graudis 

 established by Verrill would seem, according to the description of its outer form, to be identical with 

 gigantea, but this fact cannot be decided, as Verrill does not mention the spicules at all; if they 

 prove to be identical Verrill's name has the priorit)'. 



The species Cladorhiza concrcsccns from the West Indies established by Schmidt (Spong. des 

 Meerbuseu von Mexiko, II, 1880, 83, Tab. X, Fig. 8, 9) must be a very closely allied species. Its form is 

 quite similar, and it has also two forms of ancora; the large ancora has six teeth, but of the small 

 ancora it is said that its teeth are so long as almost to touch each other in the middle. Schmidt's 



expression ..... den Schlammbeleg des Stieles » shows with rather great certainty that this species 



has a layer coating the stalk, which fact is not known to be found in other Chondrocladia-species 

 than gigantea. 



Locality: Station 4, 64 07' Lat. N., 11° 12' Long. W., depth 237 fathoms (bottom temperature 



14 



