226 Records of the Indian Museum. [Vol. VI, 1911.] 



1. The sponge is green fresh and nearly black dry. 



2. The oscula are almost flush with the external surface and 



show but slight traces of being elevated above it. 



3. The vertical pillars or radiating fibres of the skeleton are 



rather close together, so that their free extremities are 

 disposed densely on the surface, giving it a more spiny 

 appearance. 



4. The skeleton-spicules are slightly stouter. 



5. The gemmule-spicules are extremely variable in size; 



indeed, there is an almost complete gradation between 

 megascleres and microscleres, some of the largest of 

 the latter being nearly smooth. 



Habitat. — Bed of the Bhima River at Khed, Poona district : 

 with Spongilla cinerea and 5. homhayensis. 



In his account of the gemmule of C. hurmanica Kirkpatrick 

 distinguishes three layers of spicules, an outer shell of skeleton- 

 spicules, an intermediate layer of microscleres, and an inner layer 

 of the latter in close contact with the gemmule. In many of the 

 gemmules I have examined, however, I can only distinguish two 

 distinct layers, an outer cage of skeleton-spicules mixed with 

 amphistrongylous microscleres of very variable size and form, and 

 an inner layer of much more uniform gemmule-spicules embedded 

 like a mosaic in the outer wall of the gemmule. 



Both forms of C. hurmanica differ from C. loricata, Weltner, 

 in the structure of the gemmule-spicule, the spines of which are 

 much stouter in the latter; from C. lapidosa, Annandale, their 

 much less stony hardness, spherical gemmules, well-defined radiat- 

 ing skeleton-fibres and conspicuous oscula will at once distinguish 

 them. 



