i6o Records of the Indian Museum. [Vol. XVI, 



Type-specimen. — P 59/1 Zoological Survey of India (Ind. Mus.). 



Distribution.— I have examined specimens from the Kumaon 

 lakes in the Western Himalayas as well as from the Koyna and 

 Yenna rivers in the Satara district and from artificial reservoirs in 

 the Satara fort and at Karla in the Poona district. At the last- 

 named place I found the surface of the water densly covered with 

 gemmules from dried sponges exposed on rocks. 



Spongilla (Stratospongilla) sumatrana, Weber. 



i8qo. Spongilla sumatrana, V^eber, Zool. Ergebn. Niederl. Ost.-Ind., I, 

 p. 38, pi. iv, figs. 6-10. 



S. sumatrana has not hitherto been recognized as occurring in 

 British India^ though reported from both Sumatra and the Nile. 

 In describing S. indica and S. gravelyi I pointed out their close 

 relationship to this species, but in the absence of linking forms was 

 obliged to regard them as specifically distinct. Linking forms 

 have, however, now been found and specimens of the forma typica 

 discovered in Indian territory. The species seems to be an ex- 

 tremel}^ plastic one and at least five varieties ma^^ be recognized. 

 The species as a species must, therefore, be defined in somewhat 

 general terms. I believe that the following description should be 

 adequate. 



Sponge thin and encrusting, of a bright green colour except 

 when in deep shade or very muddy water, with small oscula and 

 horizontal ramifying subdermal exhalent channels, with a hard but 

 ver}' friable skeleton formed of large numbers of macroscleres 

 without well-defined spicule-fibres, with short slender macroscleres 

 the majority of which are spiny, with slender amphioxous or 

 amphistrongylous free microscleres that are alwa^^s densely covered 

 with short spines and are usually abundant in the dermal mem- 

 brane, with short, compact amphistrongylous gemmule-spicules 

 also covered with short spines ; gemmules small, spherical, covered 

 with a single layer of microscleres arranged mosaic wise in a single 

 layer in an outer horny membrane, with a short, nearly straight 

 foraminal tubule. 



forma typica 



In this form the skeleton-spicules are sharply pointed and 

 irregularly spiny; there are two kinds of free microscleres, one 

 larger and more sharply pointed than the other ; the gemmule-spi- 

 cules are ver}^ short and stout, uniformly spiny and either straight 

 or slightly curved. The gemmules are free The skeleton is very 

 compact. 



The form was described from Lake Singkarah in Sumatra. I 

 found small patches of dried sponge on the walls of a well at 

 Medha that agree with a co-type sent me by Prof. Max Weber. 

 The nilotic variety described by Weltner ^ seems to differ from the 



• " Die ('oclenteraten und Schwa in me des Siissen Wassers Ost-Afrikas " in 

 Mobius' Ost.-Afrilcn, IV figoS). 



