with some Remarks on the Nature of the Spongiæ Marine. 401 
ing membrane“; with numerous minute pores; and frequently with larger 
orifices or oscules, which are more sparingly and irregularly dispersed over 
their surfaces ; with passages or canals communicating through the pores and 
oscules one with another, along which the water finds a ready course or cir- 
culation, and affords nutriment to all the inner parts of the masses; with 
locomotive sporules; and in some species with fixed sporidia. 
Concerning these last-mentioned bodies, which I have previously supposed 
to be sporidia, a fuller notice is here requisite. 
Although M. De Lamarck t has said of the gelatinous bodies or grains that 
are so numerous in the Spongillæ, “que rien de semblable n'a encore été 
observé dans les véritables Eponges," yet they have been recently detected in 
the Spongiæ Marine; for Professor Link has expressly made known in his 
essay in the Transactions of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin, that 
M. Ehrenberg told him, that he had seen them (Sporangient) in very many 
Sponges of the Red Sea. His own words are as follow: “Auch sagt mir 
Herr Ehrenberg, dass er an mehreren Spongien im Rothen Meere Sporangien 
bemerkt habe$." 
And indeed these seedlike bodies, little spheres, spherules, or sferette, spo- 
rangien or sporidia, may be seen well represented in fig. C. at t. c. f. c., and in 
fig. E. at a. a. a., of Donati's| Plate VIII., given to illustrate the marine pro- 
duction called by him * Alcionio primo di Dioscoride," which is synonymous 
with the Alcyonium cydonium I of Linnæus**, and A. cotoneum of Pallas gt; 
* As this membrane is subject to some variation, it may be used for a character to distinguish the 
genera of the Spongie Marine. T Anim. sans Vert., tom. ii. p. 99, edit. 1816. 
t It is worth while to note, that Link uses in this passage the same word as he had just before 
done (at p. 120.) when he was describing the similar seedlike bodies (Sporangien) of the Spongilla; no 
uncertainty can consequently arise about the exactly identical nature of these bodies. 
$ Abhandlungen der Kóniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, aus dem Jahre 1830. 
Berl., 1832, p. 121. 
See Donati, Storia Naturale Marina dell’ Adriatico. Ven., 1750. 
«| The Alcyonium cydonium of Müller, which is the Cydonium Mulleri of Fleming and Johnston, is 
a very different substance, being a true Polypary. Yet Ehrenberg deems the A. cydonium of Müller 
to be only a young specimen of Alcyonium digitatum of Linnzus; and from the figures 3 and 4 in 
tab. 81. vol.iii. of the Zoologia Danica, edit. Abildgaard (Havn. 1789), it certainly much resembles 
the early form of that Zoophyte, and before it has developed itself into the usual fingerlike lobes. 
** See Linn. Syst. Nat., edit. 12, p. 1295. Tt Pallas, Elench. Zooph., p. 359. 
362 
