120 pni'LLOSPONQIA. — LEIOSELLA, 



North coast of Australia : Bird Island (' Alert '), Thursday Island (' Alert '), 

 Torres Straits (' Alert '), Channel Eocks (' Alert '), off "Wednesday Island, 

 Cape York (' Challenger "), South coast of New Guinea (A. B. Meyer). 

 West coast of Australia : Western Australia (Baily). South coast of Aus- 

 tralia : PhiUip's Island, Port Phillip, V. (Hyatt). East coast of Australia : 

 Port MoUe, Q. (' Alert ') ; Port Jackson, N. S. W. (Lendenfeld). 



New Zealand : Port Chalmers (Parker). 



Genus LEIOSELLA, 



Compressed, cup-shaped, branched, or flabellar SpoDgidte, 

 with smooth surface, a very fine skeleton-net, and foreign 

 spicule-fragments in the fibres. Without a continuous cortical 

 sand-armour. 



Leiosella compacta, Carter. 



Euspongia compacta, H. J. Carter, " New Sponges : observations on old ones, 



and a proposed new Group," Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 



ser. 5, vol. x. p. lOG (1882). 

 Euspongia compacta, E. v. Lendenfeld, " A Monograph of the Australian 



Sponges. — Part VI. The Genus Euspongia," Proceedings of the Linnean 



Society of New South Wales, vol. x. p. 527 (1885). 



Irregularly vase-shaped or thick frondose sponges, which attaua a height of 

 100 millim. and a breadth of 110 millim. The free margins are rounded off, 

 and the lamella has a very uniform thickness of 2 millim. The vase-shaped 

 specimens are conic, with a slightly everted margin, and attached by a com- 

 paratively broad base, not pedunculate. The more irregular frondose or lobose 

 specimens consist of a small basal mass, from which one or a few curved or 

 slightly folded fronds arise. The oscida are small, measui'iug O'5-l millim. in 

 width, and scattered over one face of the fronds ; in the cup-shaped specimens 

 they are found on the inner side. In dry skeletons very minute grooves are 

 sometimes observed radiating from the oscula so as to render their appearance 

 somewhat stellate ; otherwise the surface is perfectly smooth. There is no 

 shagreen-like structure in it, nor are there any conuli. 



The living sponge is black. Dry skeletons are dark brown, stiff, but easily 

 compressible, and not very elastic. 



The surface-skeleton consists of fibres 0-007-0-012 millim. thick, which are 

 free from foreign bodies, and form a network with irregular meshes 0*1 millim, 

 wide. A few scattered sand-grains are also found in the skin. The main 



