506 REVISION OP THE AXINELLIDiE, ii., 



tion as being portions of the dermal membrane). The colour of 

 dry specimens varies from light to brownish-grey. 



The dermal membrane is very distinct and fairly tough, and 

 overlies numerous, usually not very extensive, subdermal spaces; 

 it is not (to the naked eye) visibly porous. The dermal pores, 

 over limited areas of the surface, are similar in their arrange- 

 ment to those of A. victoriana {cf. Pl.xxxviii., figs. 1-4), except 

 that the circular groups they form (which, in rare instances, 

 attain a diameter of 130 to 150/ji) are relatively less closely 

 apposed: but generally they occur only several together in much 

 smaller groups -or, in rare cases, even singly — and the groups 

 are separated by distances sometimes exceeding their own 

 diameter. 



»S'^e^e^o?i. — N^ hilst in regard to spiculation no definite distinc- 

 tion can be drawn between the present species and A. victoriana, 

 the arrangement of the skeleton in the two differs very con- 

 siderably This will be evident from a comparison of the figures 

 of the skeleton (prepared by treatment with caustic potash) in 

 the two cases, as seen in section,— especially PI. xxix., fig. 4, and 

 PL xxxi., fig- 1, — the former of which is from a lamella (varying 

 in thickness from less than I nun. at one edge to 8 mm. at the 

 other) of the present species, and the latter from a thick vertical 

 slice (from 6 to 10 mm. in thickness) of a massive specimen of 

 A. victoriana. The chief points of difference are two. Firstly, 

 there is an entire absence, in the present species, of any observ- 

 able differentiation in the structure of the skeleton relative to a 

 number of separate axes, and the pattern is accordingly every- 

 where (including even the incipient processes into which the 

 lamellae sometimes tend to resolve) much the same; and secondly 

 — in necessary correlation with this— the main fibres are never 

 transversely directed, but always run in a more or less ascending 

 direction, with gradual trend surfacewards, branching (not very 

 frequently) as they go. As in A. victoriana, the connecting 

 fibres are numerous, and interunite with one another to form 

 (along with the main fibres) a rather small -meshed reticulation; 

 but the reticulation is here very irregular, and there is no marked 

 tendency on the part of the connecting fibi'es to be confined (as 



