RHABDOCALYPTUS VICTOR. 241 



communicates with the exterior only by means of the (secondary) 

 oscuhim of the daughter person. 



Essentially similar in shape is the magnificient specimen 

 shown in PI. XVII., reduced to one-fourth of the natural size 

 (S. C. M. No. 423 ; from Homha, about 859 m.). The circumstances 

 of its capture I have already had occasion to relate in my 

 Contribution I., pp. 24-25. Its total height is 880 mm. As in 

 many other cases, the body is laterally compressed, the compres- 

 sion being especially distinct in the stalk-like basal region which 

 is bent towards one side. The major and minor diameters of the 

 osculum are 400 mm. and 300 mm. respectively ; those of the 

 body at about its middle, 270 mm. and 220 mm. The basal 

 region measures only 50 mm. trasversely from side to side. The 

 lower end of the body is continued, in the direction opposite to 

 the main osculum at the upper end, into a laterally compressed 

 outbulging, wdiich soon divides into two thin-walled tubes, situated 

 one behind the other in the median sagittal plane and each 

 terminating in a secondary osculum directed downwards. The 

 irregular attachment surface of the bent base is (snpero-inferiorly) 

 180 mm. long ;ind (transversely) 85 mm. broad. Judging from 

 its disposition in relation to the directions of the oscula present, 

 it is highly probable that the sponge was growing on a per- 

 pendicular surface. The wall is 14 mm. thick in the middle of 

 the body ; lower down, it is as thick as 19 mm. The gastral 

 cavity extends into the laterally compressed base in the form of 

 a vertical slit-like space, giving to the wall at the cul-de-sac end 

 a thickness of only about 11 mm. On one side of the lateral 

 wall (not seen in the ligure) and at a short distance from the 

 main osculum, there exists in the wall an irregularly shaped gap, 

 apparently the result of a mechanical injury. The torn edge of 



