450 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [744] 
HALISARCA ?, Species undetermined, a. 
Watch Hill, Rhode Island, 4 to 5 fathoms. Forms small, soft, some- 
what gelatinous masses, on red alge. (See p. 498.) 
SUBERITES COMPACTA Verrill, sp. nov. 
This species is remarkable for the compactness of its tissues and the 
smallness of the canals and pores permeating its substance, as well as 
for the large size of the plates and crest-like lobes in which it grows. 
A transverse section of the dried sponge shows very numerous irregular 
canals, most of them not larger than pin-holes (or less than 0.15™™ 
in diameter). The tissue is very compact throughout, but is more dense 
close to the surface, which is nearly smooth, the oscules being small aud 
inconspicuous. The spicules are very abundant, crowded, very slender, 
mostly pin-shaped (spinulate), with the point very acute and the “ head” 
but little enlarged, and often largest a slight distance from the end, so 
as to give the head a slightly ovate form. Color, when living, bright 
yellow. 
Off Martha’s Vineyard, 10 fathoms, sand; Nantucket ; Eastern Shore 
of Virginia. 
This is the species described as a “ firm siliceous sponge,” on page 
503. In general appearance it somewhat resembles Suberites suberea 
Gray (Hymeniacidon suberea Bowerbank). 
JLIONA SULPHUREA Verrili. (p. 421.) 
Spongia sulphurea Desor, Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. iii, p. 68, 1848. 
South Carolina to Cape Cod; local farther north. Great Egg Harbor, 
New Jersey ; very abundant in Long Island Sound and Vineyard Sound, 
on oysters and various other shells, 1 to 15 fathoms. Portland Hirbor, 
Maine, in sheltered localities (C. B. Fuller). 
? POLYMASTIA ROBUSTA Bowerbank. (p. 497.) 
British Spongiade, vol. i, p. 178, Piate 29, fig. 358; vol. ii, p. 62, 1866. 
Off Gay Head, 18 to 20 fathoms; common in Casco Bay and Bay of 
Fundy, 8 to 70 fathoms. Coast of Great Britain (Bowerbank). 
The American specimens do not agree in all respects with the descrip 
tion, and may prove to be distinct when a direct comparison can be 
made. In our specimens the surface is finely hispid; the dermal tissue is’ 
firm, and filled with small, slender, often carved, needle-shaped (“‘acuate”), 
and pin-shaped (‘*spinulate”) spicules, which project from the surface. 
The latter form is the predominant one, but the ‘ head” is very small, 
and they pass gradually into the former kind, in which the ‘head ” is 
obsolete, or not larger than the shaft. The spicules of the large, radi- 
ating fascicles in the body of the sponge are long and large, needle- 
shaped, with the central portion thickest (‘‘ fusiformi-acuate”). The 
large spicules in the longitudinal fascicles of the cloacal fistule are of 
thersame form; the secondary fascicles of the body and the transverse 
secondary spicules of the fistulse also have the same form, though much 
