258 The Irish Naturalist. [November, 



Carrion Crow in that Museum is a Rook. This is only partly 

 correct, for there is a true Irish-killed Co}V2is coroiie 2i\\\on% 

 the specimens at Belfast, and that bird, which has full data, 

 was seen and its identification confirmed by Mr. Barrington 

 in August, 1897. Besides this example, there was a Rook 

 erroneously labelled " Carrion Crow,'* as Mr. Barrington 

 noted ; but as the latter bird had no data its identity is of 

 comparatively little importance, and it does not deserve to be 

 styled " the supposed Carrion Crow in the Belfast Museum.' 

 The fact that two specimens were examined, and 07ie found to 

 be wrongly labelled, will be found noted in the Irish Naturalist 

 for 1898, p. 41. 



The volume on which Mr Usslier has expended so much 

 pains is very handsomel}' bound and illustrated, and well 

 printed. To Irish ornithologists it is a mine of information, 

 and no naturalist's library ought to be without it. 



SPONGES, CORAI.S, AND JEI.I.YFISH, 



A Treatise on Zoolog^y. Edited by Prof. E. Ray Lankester, 

 LL.D., F.R.S. Part II. The Porifera and Coelentera. By E. A. 

 MiNCHiN, M.A., G. H. Fowi^ER, Ph.D., and G. C. Bourne, MA. 

 London: Adam and Charles Black, 1900. Pp. vi. +37 + 178+81+84 

 +25. I5,y. net. 



Two divisions of Invertebrates, viz. : — the Porifera (sponges) and the 

 Coelentera (corals, jellyfishes, &c.), are dealt with in the second part 

 of the great new English treatise on Zoology referred to in the May 

 number of the Irish Naturalist. 



Nearly half of the book is devoted to the sponges — a most difficult 

 group, whose true position in the animal kingdom is to the present day 

 a source of dispute among zoologists. While even a beginner can easil}' 

 recognise a sponge among a variety of natural history specimens, the 

 classification of the group presents the greatest difficulties. The 

 principal divisions are still founded on the nature of the minute spicules 

 which form the skeleton, though the old division into calcareous and 

 non-calcareous sponges no longer holds good. Three classes of recent 

 sponges are recognised by Prof. Minchin — the author of this portion of 

 the work, viz.: — Calcarea, Hexactinellida, Demospougi^e. P'^roni the 

 point of view of evolution ?nd morphology the Calcarea (sponges with 

 calcareous spicules) are of special interest, so much so, indeed, that 

 Prof Minchin deplores the powerful attraction which they offer to 

 speculative intellects, a sad state of confusion in classification and 

 nomenclature having resulted from overmuch theorizing. 



