ART. 4 SPONGES OF CALIFORNIA de LAUBENFELS 3 



All drawings were made with the aid of a camera lucida unless 

 otherwise indicated. 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY 



Very little has been published on sponges in or from California. 

 Search of the literature yields 10 references, as follows : 



The first is b}^ E. Haeckel, 1872, Die Kalkschwiimme. In volume 

 2 of this monograph of the calcareous sponges of the world, as taken 

 up more fully in the descriptive portion of this paper, he described 

 Asc'dla (now Leucosolenia) convaJlaria (p. 45), Sycandra (now 

 Sycon) coronata (p. 305), and Leucetta (now Leuconia) sagittata 

 (p. 125) merely as from California, "Brown." These species can 

 not now be located in this State. 



Fifteen years later E. Potts, 1887, in his monogi-aph on Fresh- 

 water Sponges, described Meyen'm (now Ephydatia) robust a {p. 225) 

 from Honey Lake Valley, near Susanville in northeastern California. 

 This species has been found again only once, this time by Annandale 

 (1907, p. 24), who recorded it from Bhim Tal, in the mountains of 

 northern India, at 1,350 meters, almost the same altitude as that of 

 the California specimen. 



Lendenfeld (1889, p. 258) named Euspongla hospes from Africa 

 and California (which may be Lower California, Mexico). The 

 species is not recognizably described, being characterized merely 

 as growing inside of mollusk shells, taxonomically a relatively 

 insignificant description. 



The fourth reference is by L. Lambe, 1894, Sponges from the West- 

 ern Coast of North America. He reported (p. 124) finding a sponge, 

 which he called Plocam'm manaarensis (Carter), from California. 

 He did not know the locality within the State, and his identification 

 was incorrect, as explained later in this paper. 



The next reference to California sponges is by F. E. Schulze, 

 who in 1899 published his Amerikanische Hexactinelliden nach dem 

 Materiale der Albatross-Expedition, in which he described 14 species 

 from California, as discussed hereafter. He cited as from California, 

 however, four additional species from other localities, as shown 

 by the data, including the latitude and longitude, of the Albatross 

 stations involved. Two are from the State of Washington : 

 Acanthosaccus tenuis (p. 66) and Farrea aculeata (p. 69) ; and two 

 are from Lower California, Mexico: Farrea ocea (p. 68) and 

 Bathyxiphus subtilis (p. 82). 



Then there were published two articles by F. Urban. In 1902 

 in the Zeitschrift fiir Wissenschaftliche Zoologie, he described 

 Bhahdodermella nuttingi, which had been sent him by the late Prof. 

 C. C. Nutting, of the University of Iowa; and in 1905 in the Archiv 

 fiir Naturgeschichte, he described Leucosolenia eleanor (p. 36), 



