1887.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 255 



them to collect specimens and bring tliem to the knowledge of 

 specialists in this branch of science. Few if any, at least, are reported 

 to have been seen or described, until now that a single specimen 

 has fallen into my hands. It was collected during a transcontinental 

 journey from the west coast of South America, through Bolivia 

 and down the Beni, Madeira and Amazon Rivers, undertaken by 

 Dr. H. H. Rusby, travelling in the interest of the enterprising drug 

 firm of Parke, Davis & Co. of New York. 



I failed to communicate with Dr. Rusby, as I had greatly desired, 

 before he left the western side of the continent, to request his par- 

 ticular attention to these sponges; and the specimen referred to was 

 one that only incidentally attracted his notice as he floated down 

 the rivers. It was seen not in the water however, but hanging high 

 and dry above it. When I had confirmed his supposition that it 

 was a fresh water sponge, a species of Parmula, he wrote, — "It exists 

 abundantly along the River Ibon a small branch of the Beni. 

 When the river overflows, the sponge is deposited in the bushes. 

 It is exactly spherical and of a size varying from that of a walnut 

 to one foot in diameter. The spicules are poisonous when penetrating 

 the flesh, producing a painful swelling that lasts for several days. 

 It is said at times to produce lockjaw.^ The overflow is annual and 

 lasts only a few weeks. The sponge appears to vary in other local- 

 ities in which I saw it. Beside this there are other quite different 

 species that are deposited at the same time. One is a very dirty 

 thing, like a mass of mud, or of mud mixed with ashes ; of most 

 irregular form, looking like the mud nests made by some species of 

 ants and bees." 



The principal specimen received from Dr. Rusby and probably 

 the only species that he was aware that he collected, nearly resembles 

 Parmula hrownii (S. hrownii, Bk.) and will be presently described 



* I can say nothing confirmatory of the supposed poisonous character of these 

 spicules, except what is probably already well known, — that when handling dried 

 fresh water sponges of any kind, if the forehead, neck, wrists etc. are accidentally 

 touched by the fingers, to which spicules may have adhered, the latter penetrate the 

 skin and produce very perceptible and irritating welts which remain for several 

 hours. I received recently from Mr. Henry L Osborn of Lafayette, Indiana, a 

 sample of fine dirt that was complained of by laborers who cultivated a certain 

 field, as producing a greatly irritated condition of the skin in dry weather, when, 

 as dust, it settled upon them. It appeared that a portion of this field had been an 

 old "pond hole," since drained; and I found the dust to abound in the spicules of 

 sponges that had once lived there. 



