428 REVISION OF THE MONAXONID SPONGES, iii., 



the extremities. The specimen (PI. xxiii., fig. 5), which possesses 

 a sparse reticulate skeleton of slender horny fibres cored with small 

 strongyla, is identically similar to a fragment from the British 

 Museum labelled Chalinodendron dendrilla, — and to that species it 

 undoubtedly belongs. 



For the identification of Axinella inflata, accordingly, one will 

 have to depend solely on the scanty description of the species. 

 If this description is con-ect, the species does not belong to Axi- 

 nella in the strict sense, but to a new genus apparently possessing 

 athnity \\ii\i A xinosia (vide p. 349). Until it is rediscovered, how- 

 ever, and its precise nature known, and while the genus Axinella 

 still remains ^'a receptacle for all Axinellidie which do not belong to 

 more clearly defined genera," the species perhaps had better remain 

 known, for the present, by its original name. 



Axinella obtusa. 



The same remarks apply to this species as have been made above 

 in the first sentence and concluding paragraph of my remarks in 

 reference to Axinella inflata, to which species A. obtusa appears, 

 from its description, to be very closely related. A specimen labelled 

 in Lendenfeld's handwriting, "Dictyocylindrus obtusa" the MS. 

 name corresponding to A. obtusa, according to the key-list — 

 occurs in the Australian Museum, but neither in external nor inter- 

 nal features does it comply with the description of the species; it 

 belongs to an undescribed species of Raspailia, similar to R. 

 tenella, in the size and form of its spicules, and also in the posses- 

 sion of radiate tufts of dermal spicules, but approaching rather to 

 R. gracilis in the precise pattern of its skeleton. In its external 

 shape, however, irrespective of its relatively small size and slender 

 proportions, the specimen exhibits a very considerable degree of 

 correspondence with the description ; and it is just possible, there- 

 fore, that the outward description of A. obtusa was based upon a 

 much larger and more stoutly proportioned specimen of the same 

 Raspailia species. Consequently, if, as seems not unlikely, this 

 species should be found to grow to the size to which A. obtusa is 



