SfONGES FROM COASTAL BEACHES OF N. 8. WALES — WHITELEGGE. 1 1 3 



1-5 to 2 mm. in diameter. Texture open, firm, and elastic. 

 Colour, dark or reddish-brown. 



Skeleton — Reticulate, with usually square mesh, but often 

 oblong or angular ; main fibres Oo to 0'15 mm. in diameter, and 

 from 0'6 to O'S mm. apart ; they are cored with foreign spicule 

 fragments, and with a few large and many small sand grains, the 

 diameter of the core being about half that of the fibre. The 

 connecting fibres are free from foreign bodies ; their diameter 

 varies from 004 to 06, and they are generally about 0'3 mm. 

 apart. 



There are three specimens from the Hawkesbury River and 

 three from Lake Illawarra. 



Sub-family STELOSPONGIN^. 



Stelospongia, Schmidt. 



Stelospongia LEVIS, Hyatt. 



(Plate XV., figs. 32, 32a -b). 



Stelospongia levis, Hyatt, Mem. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., ii., (4), 1877, 

 p. 531, pi. XV., fig. 16. 



Stelospongia levis, var. rotunda, Hyatt, loc. cit., p. 531, pi. xvii., 

 figs. 23-24. 



Stelospongia levis (Hyatt), Carter, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., (5), xv., 

 1885, p. 303. 



Stelospongia australis, var. conulata, Lendenfeld, Aust. Mus. Cat., 

 xiii.. Sponges, 1888, p. 168; id., Mon. Horny Sponges, 1889, 

 p. 516, pi. XXV., fig. 3. 



Stelospongia australis, var. fovea, Lendenfeld, Aust. Mus. Cat., 

 xiii., Sponges, 1888, p. 170, pi. xi. ; id., Mon. Horny Sponges, 

 1889, p. 518, pi. xxiv., fig. 8. 



Stelospongia levis, as figured by Hyatt on plate xv. is strikingly 

 like Stelospongia australis va.r. fovea, as figured by Lendenfeld on 

 plate xi. in the Catalogue of Sponges. They are very similar in 

 shape and in the terminations of the fibres at the surface. If the 

 various descriptions are compared it is difficult to see were the 

 difierences come in, except in outward form, which is extremely 

 variable, and ranges from broadly fusiform to globose, with a 

 large central or excentric oscula ; others again are lobose, or 

 appear to be composed of several individuals having a common 

 peduncle and numerous oscula which may be seriate or scattered. 

 There are over 60 examples in the Fisheries collection, and 

 scarcely any two are alike in habit. The surface is equally vari- 

 able, the height and disposition of the conuli ditiering in the same 



