BY E. F. KALLMANN. 343 



liarity, however, is not as Lendenf eld's statement with regard 

 thereto would imply, a feature of all the spicules, nor perhaps 

 even of a majority of them ; and also at variance with the 

 description are the facts that the megascleres (which attain to 

 considerably greater dimensions than stated either by Lenden- 

 feld or Whitelegge) are of two kinds, and that microscleres are 

 present in the form of trichodragmata. Yet to these discrepan- 

 cies no importance can be attached, inasmuch as the tricho- 

 dragmata, owing to their minuteness of size, and the mega- 

 scleres of one kind, owing to their comparative fewness and not 

 very marked difference in form from the others, could very 

 easily escape detection, and, in fact, were overlooked by White- 

 legge ; while, as regards the matter of the size of the mega- 

 scleres, it has to be borne in mind that the measurements given 

 in the Catalogue are seldom accurate. Accordingly, I have no 

 doubt that the British Museum specimen is correctly labelled, 

 and propose that it be taken as the type of the species — now 

 to be known as Thrlnaco'phora ( ?) rlafhriformis. 



Descriptio)i. — For an account of the external features, one 

 must depend, for the present, upon the rather meagre infor- 

 mation afforded by the original description, which is as fol- 

 lows : — "Sponge lobose, massive, attaining to a height of 250 

 mm., erect, attached by a small base, with very large and con- 

 spicuous oscula, 10mm. wide, which lie scattered on the sum- 

 mits of the lobes, and a smooth surface." It is well to be re- 

 minded of the possibility, however, that this portion of Len- 

 denf eld's description and the remaining portion of it having 

 reference to the internal features may have been based respec- 

 tively upon two different species. 



The skeleton consists, in part, (i.) of a ramifying system of 

 multispicular plumose "funes" (compound fibres), which are 

 distinguishable into (a) stouter and more compact primary 

 ones, 0-5 mm. to perhaps 1 mm. or more in diameter and rela- 

 tively few in number, constituting the chief axes of the skele- 

 ton, and (b) slenderer secondary ones running off from these 

 to the surface, usually with much branching and some amount 



