go 



PORIFERA. I. 



found, especially consisting in the fact that the large sigmata seem to become somewhat larger, up 

 to o-i6""", and especially thicker, from o-oo6— o-oi3""", and that the rhaphides are stated to be of an 

 average length of 0-275'"'", but as otherwise the form of sigmata, as also the fact that they are plane, 

 agree well with m>- species, I suppose the species to be identical with capiUifcra. 



Bowerbank's Desinacrlla variantia so far has the same spiculation as capiUifcra, as the 

 microsclera are sigmata of two sizes and only one kind of rhaphides, but the measures given by 

 Bowerbank, make its being referred to this species impossible, the styli being given of a length of 

 only 0-6'""" and the rhaphides of o-05'""'. 



Locality: Station 94, 64" 56' Lat. N., 36° 19' Long. W., depth 204 fathoms, a fragment on a Rcfe- 

 pora Beaniana. 



Geogr. disir. The species seems to be widely spread in longitude: the Atlantic coast of Canada, 

 ca. 50° Lat. N., depth 200 fathoms (Lambe); the Denmark Strait 64° 56' Lat. N., depth 204 fathoms (Ingolf): 

 the Kara Sea between 70 and 72' Lat. N., depth 78 fathoms (Levinsen). In each of the localities onl)- 

 one specimen has been taken. 



2. D. Peachii Bow. 

 PI. IV, Figs. 10— 13, PI. XVI, Fig. 2, a— 1. 



1866. Desmacidon Peachii Bowerbank, Mon. of Brit. Spong. II, 349, 3, III, PI. LXIII, figs. 1—7. 



1867. Bietnma Peachii Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1867, 538. 



1870. Desmacella Peachii O. Schmidt, Spongien d. atlant. Gebiet, 77. 



1880. Desmacodes Peachi Vosmaer, Notes from the Leyden Museum 104, 2. 



1887. Rhaphiodcsvia aculcatitm Topsent, Arch, de Zool. exp. et gen. Sen 2, Tome V bis, supplementaire, 



152, 59, Tab. VII, fig. 14. 

 1890. Desmacella Peachi Topsent, Mem. Soc. Zool. de France, III, 200. 



Leaf-shaped or caliciilar. The surface zoith small, conical processes formed by the projecting fibres. 

 The dermal membrane thin, only provided zt'ith microsclera. Oscula feiv, scattered. The skeleton consists 

 of powerful polyspicular fibres, branching from the base up through the sponge and anastomosing. The 

 needles are cemented by a small ajnount of spo)igin. Spicula : Megasclcra styli o-8y—r^"""; microsclera 

 sigmata of two sizes, large ones o-og2""". most frequently ii/ bundles, small ones 0.016 — 0-021""" ; rhaphides 

 0/ two sizes in bundles, long, hairlike ones o-/j — o-iy""", short ones 0-042 — o-o^j""" ; commata 0-011-0-014"'"'. 



To this species I refer one of the four species before me that seems to me to agree rather 

 well with Bowerbank's description and figures (fig. 2, where the skeletal spicule is figured as a 

 tylostylus, is evidently erroneous, or a spicule not normal to the species has been figured; in the text 

 tylostyli are not mentioned, and in the systematic synopsis given before the genus, it is just by the 

 Skeleton spicula acuate > that D. Peachii is distinguished from D. cegagropila with the Skeleton 

 .spicula spinulate»), and no doubt it is also this species that has first been described by Topsent I.e. 

 as Rhaphiodesma aciileatuin, but later by him has been referred to Desmacella Peachii. The following 

 species is chiefly distinguished from the present one by the form of the large sigma, and here we 

 have by the determination only the figure of Bowerbank to go by, but this figure seems to agree 

 best with the sigma in the present species. 



