442 BULLETIN 100, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



small subtylostyles of about the same size as spicule (4) in the 

 Albatross sponge, but it has also toxas and two classes of isochelas. 

 Hentschel gives the types as having " Keine Rinde," but in one of 

 his varieties (majo?*) he finds that ''eine diinne Rinde aus ungeord- 

 neten Nadeln ist vorhanden." Doubtless the armature of dermal 

 spicules varies a good deal within the species. 



Thiele, 1903 (p. 958), has studied a specimen which is certainly 

 very close to, probable identical with, the Albatross form. Thiele's 

 sponge, from Ternate, he remarks is very similar to G. frondifera 

 (Bowerbank). He refers it to Rhaphidophhis filifer, variety spin- 

 ifera Lindgren (1898), but erects Lindgren's variety into a species. 

 This identification would seem to be questionable, since Thiele's 

 sponge includes in its dermal " crust " a small style not mentioned by 

 Lindgren. The spiculation of Thiele's sponge (1903, fig. 23) is very 

 close, except in the presence of toxas, to that of the Albatross variety, 

 and in its habitus it resembles the groAving parts of the latter in 

 which independent branches are distinguishable. 



The data indicate that in G. frondifera we are dealing, as Dendy 

 has suggested, with a widely distributed and variable species. Among 

 the variable structures we must include the dermal skeleton, which 

 may be present in a highly developed state (var. setotubulosa) or 

 only as a fairly distinct structure lacking characteristic spicules 

 ( Dendy 's specimens of the type, 1905, p. 170, see previously), or 

 it may be so inconspicuous (absent?) as to have escaped mention. 

 If this series of forms is correctly interpreted as a group of varie- 

 ties, Rhaphidophlus Ehlers in the usual sense (to which the variety 

 here described, considered by itself, would be referable) can not be 

 maintained. And, indeed, since Dendy, 1895 (p. 31), it has been 

 generally, although not always, merged in Clathria. Recently Hall- 

 mann, 1912 (p. 175), would restore the genus, using it, however, in 

 a special sense to include only species in which the projecting dermal 

 styles are of a special kind, namely, derivatives of the echinating 

 styles and typically shorter than the latter. I suspect that this defi- 

 nition is too precise to be of use in practice. Topsent (1920c?, p. 17) 

 is willing to restore the genus practically in its old sense. 



CLATHRIA FASCICULATA, new species. 



Plate 42, fig. 6 ; plate 49, figs. 7, 8. 



One dried specimen from Togian Bay, Togian Island, Gulf of 

 Tomini, Celebes. 



The sponge is of fruticose appearance, branching and expanding 

 from the attached base upward; the branches, commonly about 15 \l 

 thick, anastomose freely with one another. Height of the whole 

 mass 230 mm., greatest width 170 mm. Color, grayish red. 



