232 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



Axinella villosa, Carter. 



Axinella villosa, Carter, A.M.N.H., November, 1885, p. 361. 



The only additional specimen of this species is short-stalked, 

 bushy, with short, thick, digitiform branches, tapering rather 

 abruptly to their apices and about half an inch thick in the 

 middle. The surface is uniformly granular. The texture is 

 firm and tough, with axial condensation. The skeleton is very 

 regularly plumose, and the spicules are stout and rather short 

 oxea, with a few stylote. 



R.N. 1017 (x B). 



B.M. d. 83("Axine/la villosa," Reg. 86-12-15-398). 



Axinella stelliderma, Carter. 



Axinella stelliderma, Carter, A.M.N.H., November, 1885, p. 360. 



There are three specimens in the collection which T have some 

 hesitation in identifying with this species because, although they 

 agree very well indeed with the fragment of the type sent to me 

 from the British Museum, there is one feature in Mr. Carter's 

 original description which I cannot find in any of the specimens 

 examined by me. I refer to the long spicule " projecting from 

 the summit of the granule and surrounded at its base sheaf-like 

 by a number of shorter ones." In my preparations all the 

 spicules either end naturally or are broken oft' short at or near 

 the surface, and I cannot find any conspicuously differing in size 

 from the remainder. I find that the largest spicules in the type 

 measure about - 68 by 0008 nun., which agrees very well with 

 Mr. Carter's own measurements. 



The skeleton is very Raspallla-like ; with a central axis of 

 thick, anastomosing, laminated horny fibres, cored by the slender 

 styli, from which loose, irregular slender whisps of similar 

 spicules curve outwards towards the surface. 



The external form varies somewhat, the branches being some- 

 times long and sometimes short, but always coming off more or 

 less in one plane. Two specimens show minute vents, mostly 

 marginal. 



The name stelliderma is hardly well-chosen and evidently refers 

 to a very minute character which entirely escaped my own obser- 

 vation, for I have noted the surface as being even but granular. 



