28 



BULLETIN 104, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



wall composed of felted and slightly cemented sponge spicules and 

 fine amorphous material in varying quantitied, rather soft, almost 

 friable, surface with a film of duU black or light brown ; in worn speci- 

 mens white. 



Length, up to 50 mm. or more; diameter, up to 4 mm. 



Distribution. — The recorded distribution of this species is practically 

 world-wide. On the European side of the Atlantic it was described 

 from Hardanger Fjord, Norway (M. Sars, G. O. Sars, Norman), and 

 is recorded from the Bay of Biscay (Norman, de Folin) as weU as 

 from the Mediterranean and off the Azores. From the American 

 side it is unrecorded. An examination of the Albatross material gives 

 specimens from numerous stations especially massed between Cape 

 Hatteras and the latitude of Cape Cod with a smgle station off Nova 

 Scotia. The depths range from 82 to 1,859 fathoms, only two sta- 

 tions, however, bemg in depths greater than 1,000 fathoms, and the 

 bottom temperatures range from 38.6° to 40.6° with one at 45° F. 



From nearly all of these the material where unworn has a dark 

 coating over the whitish interior and is without constricted or jomted 

 areas. At one station material was found like the typical European 

 material, white and distinctly jomted. In comparison with B. rufus 

 it is a species of colder waters as far as the data from the Albatross 

 material shows. B.jiliformis does not occur in the material south of 

 Cape Hatteras, while B. rufus is found in the Gulf of Mexico and 

 Caribbean Sea. 



Pearcey speaks of material obtained from the Antarctic having a 

 considerable number of mineral particles built into the walls, due, as 

 he thinks, to the nature of the glacial deposit with which the specimens 



occur. 



Bathysiphon filiformis — material examined. 



