XVII. NOTBvS ON FREvSHWATER SPONGES. 



By N. Annandale^ D.Sc, F.A.S.B., Superintendent, Indian 



Museum. 



XIII. — Specimens collected in the Poona District, Bombay 

 Presidency, by S. P. Agharkar. 



The Indian Museum is indebted to ^Ir. Agharkar for an in- 

 teresting little collection of sponges from the Bhima River in the 

 Western Ghats (Poona district), among the specimens being the 

 types of a new subspecies. 



Genus Spongilla. 



I. Spongilla [Euspongilla) cinerea, Carter. 



This rare sponge was found encrusting the bed of the Bhima 

 River at Khed in the Poona district on May ist. The specimens, 

 which retain a bright green colour in spirit, agree in structure 

 with others obtained at Nasik on the western slopes of the Western 

 Ghats and in Naukuchia Tal (alt 4,200 feet) in the W. Himalayas. 

 They differ from a piece of the type with which I have compared 

 them in having smaller, radiate oscula and rather stouter and 

 more distinctly spinous skeleton-spicules. They possess compara- 

 tively few gemmules. 



2. Spongilla (Stratospongilla) bombayensis, Carter. 



Specimens were found on the bed of the Bhima River at Khed 

 with those of 5. cinerea. They contained (in ^lay) few gemmules. 



Genus Corvospongilla. 



In my volume on the freshwater sponges, etc., in the Fauna 

 of British India I have proposed the recognition of a new genus 

 {Corvospongilla) to include those species formerly assigned to Spon- 

 gilla which have birotulate flesh-spicules and amphioxous or (more 

 usually) amphistrongylous gemmule-spicules devoid of rotulae. 



3. Corvospongilla burmanica subsp. bombayensis , nov. 



Kirkpatrick ^ has described C. burmanica with such care that 

 it is unnecessary to characterize the new subspecies here proposed 

 otherwise than by indicating the points in which it differs from 

 the typical form of its species. 



1 Rec. Ind. Mus., ii, p. 97. 



