458 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol.83 



color is distinctive. It must be admitted that this may be a remark- 

 able modification of some previously described Haliclona, due perhaps 

 to unusual environmental conditions, but it is impossible to say which 

 Haliclona has been so modified. It is not certain that this is the real 

 situation, and it seems preferable to give a definite name by which 

 the species may be referred to rather than merely to call it Haliclona 

 "species indeterminate.". 



HAUCLONA DORIA, new species 



Holotype.— V.S.N. M. no. 22228. 



One very large specimen was found growing in shallow water on 

 the shores near Fort Randolph. It was a ramose bush, in life reaching 

 a height of nearly 1 meter, with perhaps as many as 100 branches. 

 Each of the branches is circular in cross section and a little over 1 cm 

 in diameter. The color in life was mahogany-brown. The consist- 

 ency in life was slightly flexible, very stiff. It is rather fragile as 

 preserved in alcohol. To the naked eye the surface is even, although 

 microscopically rough. The abundant pores are about lOO/x to 200/x 

 in diameter. The oscules are 2 to 3 mm in diameter and may or may 

 not be provided w^ith an oscular collar about them. They are very 

 irregularly distributed, often in rows along one side only of a cylindri- 

 cal branch. In the row they are only about 1 cm apart. The 

 internal structures are very compact, the fibers crossing each other 

 in reticulation almost at right angles, all of them, both ascending and 

 transverse, being approximately the same size, varying between 20iu 

 and 50;Lt. The ground substance about the fibers is subisodictyal. 

 Only one type of spicule is present, an oxea 9/x by 170ju. 



At and near the point of collection there were practically no other 

 sponges even approaching the ramose form. It was a beach where 

 the waves regularly broke with considerable force, and there was 

 clear-cut evidence that the environment was not very favorable to 

 this habitus. It is true that there was a depression in the immediate 

 vicinity of this specimen, but not enough to have prevented all 

 buffeting by waves. The conclusion, therefore, is that this species 

 shows an unusually strong tendency toward the ramose form. Tliis, 

 together with the somewhat unusual color, is rather distinctive 

 within Haliclona, large as that genus is. Perhaps the species nearest 

 to the one under consideration is that described as Thalysias sub- 

 triangularis Duchassaing and Michelotti (1864, p. 85). Compared to 

 that, doria has larger spicules, a different color, and the branches 

 terminate in sharp points instead of blunt clublike shapes. Tliis is 

 about all that can be said definitely, but to the person who handles 

 the two species in life, as I did, the general impressions and feeling 

 are so strikingly different that there is no suggestion that the two are 

 the same. 



