PORIFERA. II. 



IOI 



to the figure given by Wyville Thomson, in The Depths of the Sea - 187, of 

 Chondrocladia virgata. In this sponge all the brahchlets show a swelling in 

 the middle mentioned by the author as a dark greenish oval mass of granular 

 sponge matter;, a description that might very wel be used of an embryo 

 situated in the branchlet. Wyville Thomson says that the branchlets end 

 with a very narrow osculum. Carter also mentions the swelling, but has 

 found no osculum; it may perhaps have been distinct, when the sponge in 

 its fresh state was examined by Wyville Thomson, and have been closed 

 later. If the mentioned swellings in the branchlets are owing to embryos, 

 there is the curious peculiarity that an embryo is found in each branchlet. 



The quoted one of Armauer Hansen's figures of the exterior may 

 with certainty be referred to this species; also one of the specimens of his 

 C. abyssicola which I have examined proved to be the present species. Of the 

 spicula-figures those on PI. IV, figs. 4 — 5 belong with some probability to this 

 species. Also Fristedt's C. abyssicola proved, by my examining a fragment 

 sent to me, to be the present species. 



Locality: Station 15, 66° 18' Lat. N., 25 29' Long. W., depth 330 fathoms 

 (bottom temperature -=- o°75 C), station 143, 62 58' Lat. N., 7 09' Long. W., 

 depth 388 fathoms (bottom temperature -HO°4C); further 65 57' Lat. N., 27 00' 

 Long.W., depth 336 fathoms (bottom temperature 0°) (Wandel). The mentioned 

 stations are situated in the Denmark Strait and north of the Faroe Islands. 

 The species appears to be a native of the cold bottom, or the border of it. 



From station 3 with a bottom temperature of o°5 C. we have a fragment consisting of denuded skeletal 

 parts. This fragment has surely been dead long, as a Suberitid, and other forms are growing on it, 

 and it has moreover lost something of its original firmness. Therefore it must be supposed to have 

 been removed from its native place. 



Geogr. distr. As mentioned the species has been taken bv the Norwegian North-Atlantic 

 Expedition and in the Baffin Bay, depth 116— 215 fathoms (Fristedt I.e.). 





Fig. 6. Cladorhiza oxeaia 



n. sp. 



Branchlet with embryo. 



The fibre is running in the 



right side. X 20. 



? 



The Clador/iisa-species are forms all of which are natives of rather deep or very deep water. 

 The bathymetrical range of the genus is from 116 to 3000 fathoms. The genus is widely distributed, 

 from ca. 8o° Lat N. to ca. 54 Lat. S. The arctic species live generally at considerably smaller depths 

 than those of the Mediterranean and the Pacific. The species treated here, which represent all the 

 arctic species, thus have a bathymetrical range from 116 to 1309 fathoms; with the exception of 

 abyssicola they are all of them natives of cold water. The species from the Atlantic and the Pacific 

 have a bathymetrical range from 700 — 3000 fathoms; with regard to these species the bottom tempera- 

 ture of the localities at which they have been obtained varies from ca. o° to 4°4 C. (32° 1 — 40 Fahren- 

 heit). The bottom temperature o : C. (32°i Fahrenheit) applies to the southernmost species C. moniliformis 

 R. and D. obtained at 53 55' Lat. S., 138 35' Long. E. at a depth of 1950 fathoms. 



