1896. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 227 



both coraco-scapulars and both big toes [? hind toes] : neither of these 

 are present in the specimen displayed in the British Museum." 



Captain F. W. Hutton, of Christchurch — if he be the Mr. Hutton 

 intended — has such an intimate knowledge of the Dinornis skeleton, 

 and is himself so stern a rejector of " faked up " specimens, that we 

 are quite sure the restoration in question is an accurate one, as 

 admirably adapted to the needs of the science student as to those of 

 the British pubHc. But there is nothing so "noticeable" or 

 " especially interesting " in the fact that a restoration is a complete 

 one ; the British Museum, probably, is quite as rich in coraco-scapulas 

 and hind toes of Moas as even the Museum at Canterbury College, 

 Christchurch, and, even without plaster's artful aid, could produce 

 restorations of more than one species, the scientific value of which 

 would diminish in proportion as their popular attractiveness increased. 

 ■ We deprecate the idea, unconsciously suggested in the paragraph 

 from which we have quoted, that there is any rivalry between two 

 such institutions as the Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields and that in 

 Cromwell Road ; but the paragraph has produced a false impression on 

 writers for the public press, which those in possession of the facts feel 

 it their duty to correct. No great harm, however, would be done, if 

 the labels attached to such exhibits always stated, as clearly as 

 does the Report, how these specimens had been composed. This, we 

 fear, is not always the case, even at the British Museum. Still, here is 

 a chance for the Geological Department to go one better : why should 

 not Dr. Henry Woodward, with the capable assistance of Mr. C. W. 

 Andrews, Mr. W. Barlow, and Mr. Pickhardt, reconstruct a Dinornis 

 maximus, not as a naked skeleton, but in his habit as he lived ? So 

 many remains of the integument and feathers of these huge birds are 

 now known, that the restoration not only is possible, but might 

 actually be probable. 



Sponges. 

 One of the most recent additions to the exhibited collections of 

 the British Museum (Nat. Hist.) is a case in the " Index Museum," 

 containing a series of specimens, diagrams, and labels, illustrating 

 the nature of sponges. The object of the series is to set forth the 

 simpler features of sponge structure, such as the fact that sponges are 

 animals in which currents of water enter and leave the body, after 

 traversing a more or less complicated system of canals, and that this 

 body is supported by a skeleton. The sponge is regarded as an 

 organism with two layers, viz., (i) the collar cells, lining part of 

 the canal system, and (2) the " derm," forming the bulk of the 

 sponge body, and including the metabolic, skeletal, and reproductive 

 elements. The epithelium which covers the outer surface, and which 

 lines the canal surfaces not clothed with collar cells, is considered to 

 be merely a layer of modified derm cells, and not a special ectoderm 

 layer. At the same time, it is suggested that the flat epithelial cells 



