EEPORT ON THE MONAXONIDA. 259 



these two areas liaA'e been less explored than elsewhere, and are especially deserving of 

 attention at the hands of collectors, but Dr. Vosmaer must surely have overlooked Mr. 

 Carter's Suberites antarcticus (cf. p. 201). Unfortunately the Challenger adds no 

 information concerning the Indian Ocean, and this little known field will probably yield 

 a rich harvest to whoever has the good luck to thoroughly investigate it.^ 



If we arrange our own seven geographical areas according to the number of species * 

 obtained in each, we arrive at the following result : — Indo-Australian (74 species), South 

 Atlantic (52 species). Southern Ocean (36 species), Patagonian (21 species). North 

 Atlantic (19 species), South Pacific (16 species), North Pacific (7 species).' 



Thus of the seven areas the Indo-Australian has proved to be the most prolific and 

 the North Pacific the least so, and with this we must correlate the fact that the waters in 

 the former area are, comj)ared to those of the North Pacific, very shallow. 



Of individual stations, however. Station 330 (off" the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, 

 600 fathoms) has yielded by far the richest harvest. No less than 22 species were 

 obtained here, presumably at a single haul of the trawl. These species were all of them 

 new to science and most of them (e.g., Halichondria latrunculioides, Gellius calyx, 

 Gellius fiabelliformis, Tedania massa, Esperella lapidiformis, Phelloderma radiatum, 

 Ciocalypta hycdoderma, Latruncidia apicalis and Latrunculia hrevis) of great and 

 exceptional interest. This locality, indeed, seems to be a great focus of Monaxonid 

 sponge life, where the conditions must be exceedingly favourable, and where not only is 

 the diversity of species very great, but the individual species attain a high degree of 

 development and a luxuriant growth, some of them (e.g., Tedania massa) reaching huge 

 proportions, and being represented in the collection by considerable numbers of 

 specimens. 



Simon's Bay, Cape of Good Hope, also proved to be of exceptional interest for the 

 remarkable new species obtained there, for two of which we have been obliged to establish 

 new genera {Dendrop>sis and Proteleia), and the seas in the neighbourhood of Port 

 Jackson also yielded a very rich harvest, including, amongst a total of 17 species, such 

 remarkable forms as Siplionochalina intermedia, Esperella murrayi, Plutkelliajlahellata, 

 Spirastrella p)apillosa, and others. In these two cases, however, we do not know how 

 much time and trouble was spent upon the collection of the material, so that it is hardly 

 fair to compare them with individual stations where (presumably) only a single haul was 

 taken. 



Very interesting and novel results were also obtained at stations in the Pacific, 

 Atlantic, and Southern Oceans where the depth exceeded 1000 fathoms, but in these cases 

 the number of species obtained at each locality was always very small, the greatest 



1 Cf., however, the Report ou the Zoological Collections of H3I.S "Alert," Brit. Mus., 1884; and also Mr. Carter's 

 papers on Sponges from the Gulf of Manaar, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 5, vol. vi. p. 35 and ser. 5, vol. vii. p. 361. 



2 For the sake of simplicity we here include varieties as distinct species. 



3 For the localities included by us in each area, vide Chart and Table of Geographical and Bathymetrical Range. 



