156 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



some way from the rites and customs of the natives in that 

 part of the World. 



The Chairman (Mr. White) said that the word had not 

 been known before Captain Cook's description. 



Mr. Sutherland said that this custom, or something 

 nearly approaching it, was found all over tlie World. Bates 

 in his " Travels in Amazon," Wallace and other authors had 

 described the same thing. It started apparently from the 

 childish idea of putting on masks ; but when it was found 

 that people could be frightened, the proclivities of the natives 

 in the direction of the suggestion of supernatural causes had 

 led to this custom becoming semi-religious in character. 



Mr. Wilson said that Dukduk was mentioned in a recent 

 work by Eraser, wherein it was described as a ceremony 

 marking the passage from boyhood to manhood. According 

 to Mr. Fraser, its chief feature was a representation of death 

 and resurrection, the young fellow who was to be initiated 

 receiving a blow which was supposed to cause his death, and 

 certain ceremonies afterwards being preformed which were 

 supposed to bring him to life. 



A paper " On Two Rare Hydroids from Port Phillip " was 

 read by Professor W. Baldwin Spencer, who illustrated his 

 remarks by a number of charts and blackboard drawings. 



Mr. Dendy remarked that it was not surprising that Dr. 

 Gray had described the Ceratellad?e as sponges, as in external 

 appearance they bore the strongest resemblance to some of 

 the horny sponges. Not only was this so, but the skeleton 

 of the Dehitella, and that of certain horny sponges, were 

 almost identical. Mr. Carter had decided that they were 

 not sponges, because he had found thread cells in them — 

 thread cells being characteristic of hydroids. Another 

 worker had found thread cells in an undoubted sponge, and 

 had therefore jumped to the conclusion that sponges con- 

 tained thread cells ; but it had been found later on that the 

 thread cells did not belong to the sponge, but to a hydroid 

 parasitic upon the sponge. This had led him (Mr. Dendy) 

 to think that it was not altogether impossible that these 

 might be composite forms — a combination of a dead sponge 

 with a hydroid growing parasitically u])on it. Horny 

 sponges had skeletons very similar to those of the hydroids 

 just described. Dr. Schulze in his "Challenger Report" 

 described a hydroid parasitic. Dr. Gray thought that the 



