E. TMPERIALIS. — GEN. CHARACTERS. 59 



EUPLECTELLA IMPERIALIS Tj. 



Pis. I & II. 



1 EiipledcUa oweni, Schulze, '87, p. 81. 

 Euplectella imperialis, Ijima, '94, p. 365. 



Ill F. E. Schulze's 'Challenger' Report (p. 81) it stands 

 recorded that there was found among the Japanese Hexactinellida 

 collected by Döderleix — in addition to a specimen of Euplectella 

 oweni — a completely macerated and much injured skeleton (320 

 mm. long) of Euplectella, in which the spicules seemed to be loose 

 above but below were fused into a firm latticework. This was 

 assumed as belonging to a very large and old individual of 

 E. oweni, in which the usually unfused spicules had become 

 soldered together. To my knowledge such a fusion of spicules 

 never takes place in the species mentioned (see anon under 

 E. oweni). It therefore seems to me likely that Schulze had 

 before him the specimen referred to by Döderlein ('83 p. 105) 

 as having been obtained by purchase at Enoshima ; and that, 

 particularly in view of the above mentioned character of the 

 skeleton, it belonged to the species which I am now going to 

 describe under the designation of E. imperialis. 



A preliminary account of this species was given in 1894 in 

 the Zoologischer Anzeiger. Since that period no less than fifty 

 specimens have passed through my hands, including all sizes 

 from one of only 30 mm. up to a giant of 825 mm. in length. 

 They were mostly collected by Kuma. 



To give the exact localities where they were obtained : The 

 majority came from Yodomi (both Naka-no-Yodomi and Maye- 



