174 



we must either place the species I have described from the Maldives 

 in the genus Eunepkthya or give it a new generic name. There are no 

 large spicules arranged in the manner we are so familiar with in the 

 anthocodiae of the genus Spongodes (of earlier authors) known as 

 "Stützbündeln". The walls of the coelenteric cavities are not filled with 

 spicules, the anthocodiae are isolated and scattered and have no distinct 

 calyx. 



Professor Küken thai complains that I said nothing about the 

 armature of the anthocodiae (Polypenbewehrung) but he must have over- 

 looked the passage in my paper 2 . "The aboral sides of the tentacles 

 are armed with small irregular spicules, mostly rod shaped, with long 

 tubercular processes having a length of 0,5 — 1 mm, and a few of the 

 large spicules are occasionally found on the body wall." I did not state 

 that there were no "Stützbündeln" and no spicules in the walls of the 

 canals because if there had been the species could not have belonged to 

 the genus Eunephthya according to his own classification 3 which I said 

 I had adopted. 



The difficulty appears to be a geographical one. The species attri- 

 buted to the genus in Kükenthal's last paper are all cold-water forms, 

 and mainly arctic or sub-arctic or antarctic in distribution. 



The species E. maldivensis (Hickson) and E. purpurea of Thom- 

 son and Henderson are tropical, and therefore geographically remote 

 from the other species of the genus. 



This consideration has induced me to reexamine the specimen from 

 the Maldives and to compare it with specimens of Eunephthya (Duva) 

 rosea from Norway and from the west coast of Ireland. As I pointed out 

 in my original description of the species the spicules of the coenenchym 

 are long spindles very similar in form and size to those of Spongodes 

 and, I should have added, to those of some species of Nephthya. But 

 it differs from both these species in the absence of definite "Stütz- 

 bündeln". Professor Kükenthal suggest that there may be rudiments 

 of this kind of spiculation (Stützbündelrudiment) but apart from the 

 fact that occasionally a portion of one of the long spicules of the coenen- 

 chym projects on to the body wall of the polyp as I originally mentioned, 

 there is nothing to be seen in any of my preparations that can be called 

 a rudiment of a supporting bundle. 



If we are to consider that the presence of a Stützbündel is a dia- 

 gnostic feature of Nephthya and Spongodes {Dendronephthya+ Stereonepii- 

 thya) , the species in question cannot belong to either of these genera. 

 It is like Paraspongodes crassa Kükenthal, which it resembles in its 

 ramification, a species in cert a e se dis in Prof. Kükenthal's classi- 

 fication. 



2 Alcyonaria of the Maldives. Pauli. Geogr. Maldive and Laccadive Archi- 

 pelagoes Vol. II. pt. 4. p. 824. 



■i Zool. Jahrbuch. XIX. 1903. S. 103. 



