REPORT ON THE ALCYONARIA. 191 



polyps are large, club-shaped, with rough surfaces and without longitudinal markings. 

 The tentacles are folded too^ether over the mouth. 



Height of the colony 38 mm. Greatest breadth 20 mm. Length of the sterile 

 portion of the stem 6 mm. Length of a branch 8 mm. Size of a polyp 2 to 2'5 mm.; 

 diameter of the same 1 to 1 '3 mm. 



The base covers over a fragment of a Balcmus. The outer coatino- of the stem is 

 tough, leathery, wrinkled, with a rough surface. In the lower part of the stem the 

 I)ranches are Small, wart-like, with only three or four polyps ; between them occur also 

 individual isolated polyps. Higher up the branches become large and ramify. The 

 summit is occupied by a number of short, upwardly tending branches. 



The spicules fill the mesoderm of the stem, of the branches, and of the polyps, and 

 extend into the tentacles. They are straight and curved spindles with large lateral spines, 

 which bear numerous secondary dentations; sometimes lateral branched processes are 

 developed. The dentations are often more developed on one side than on the other, the 

 spindles possess lateral, warty processes, upon which strong, sometimes branched spines 

 are developed. These spindles have the following dimensions. Length to breadth — 

 0-09 by 0-05 ; 0-025 by 0-05 ; 0-09 by 0-04 ; 0-25 by O'OS mm. 



Besides the spindles there are also numerous spiny clubs, with one end slender and 

 pointed, the other thickened and provided with simple or branched spines 0"1 by 0'07 

 mm. in size. Here also an asymmetry in the arrangement of the spines is frequently to 

 be observed. There exist also numerous transition forms between these latter and the 

 spindles. There are also twin forms, cross-shaped, 0'04 mm. in size ; forked spicules, 0"16 

 mm. long, with a divergence of 0*07 mm., &c. All the spicules are of a brown colour. 

 The entire colony has hence a dark sepia-brown hue. In this respect it agrees with 

 Eunephthya nigra, Pourtalfes, but the polyps of the latter do not, according to Verrill, 

 bend inwards, but stand out straight and have eight markings running down the sides. 



Habitat.— ^i-Ai\on 163a, ofi" Port Jackson; lat. 36° 59' S., long. 150° 20' W.; depth, 

 150 fathoms. 



Genus Spongodes, Lesson, Verrill. 



Alcyonium (pars), Esper, Pflanzenthiere, t. iii. p. 49. 



Spogt/odes, Lesson, Illustr. tie Zool., 1834. 



Nephthya, Ehbg., Corallcntliiere des rothen Meeres, p. 60. 



Spiogrjodia, Dana, Zoophytes, p. 625, 1846. 



Spongodes, Verrill, Proc. Essex. Inst., vol. vi. p. 81, 1869. 



Spoggudes, Spoggodia et Morchellana, Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. LoncL, p. 27, 1862. 



Spongodes, Klunzinger, KoraUenthiere des rothen Meeres, p. 34, 1877. 



Verrill has shown (loc. cit.) that the name adopted by Lesson, derived from the Greek 

 cnToyycL)§r]<;, spongy, should, according to accepted rules of orthography, be written iu 

 the Latin style, Spongodes ; see also Klunzinger (loc. cit.). 



