Pel eon. wORTNCG SPONGES OF TELE 
BAMILY-CYIONIDAE. 
By N. ANNANDALE, D.Sc., F.A.S.B., Superintendent, 
Indian Museum. 
(Plate i.) 
Among the sponges found in excavations in shells and corals 
by far the best known are those of the family Clionidae. Having 
recently had occasion to inquire, in connection with other work, 
into the species that occur in Indian seas (that is to say, the Bay 
of Bengal with its subordinate gulfs and straits and the Arabian 
Sea, with which it is convenient to include the Persian Gulf and 
those parts of the Indian Ocean that lie immediately south and 
south-west of the Indian Peninsula), I found in our collection so 
large a proportion of the species known from Oriental waters—as 
well as several hitherto undescribed—that it seems worth while to 
bring together in a single paper references to all the former, with 
such notes as my material suggests, with keys to species and 
genera and descriptions of new forms. 
The specimens examined have included a large part of the 
collection made by the late Dr. John Anderson in the Mergui 
Archipelago off the coast of Tenasserim, and described by the late 
Dr. H. J. Carter in Vol. XXI of the Journal of the Linnean Society 
(Zool). in 1887'; as well as examples of sponges extricated from 
shells and corals from various sources in the general collection of 
the Indian Museum and specimens specially collected in the Gulf 
of Manaar and Palk Straits and in lagoons on the east coast of 
India by Mr. S. W. Kemp, Mr. J. Hornell and myself. I have to 
thank Messrs. Kemp and Hornell for valuable assistance in this 
direction. 
Fam. CLIONIDAE. 
The taxonomy and systematic position of the Clionidae have 
been considered most fully by Topsent in his papers on the family 
in vols. V* and IX of the Archives de Zoologie expérimental et 
général (1887 and 1891) and I have little to add to the general 
conclusions there set forth. References to more recent literature 
are given below in connection with the different species discussed. 
Six genera are now recognized by Topsent as constituting 
the family, namely Cliona, Grant, Clionopsis, Thiele, Alectona, 
! This paper, with many others originally published in the same Journal, was 
re-issued by Anderson in 1889 in vol. i of his Fauna of the Mergui Archipelago. 
