208 SPONGELIA. 



much narrower than the ciliated chambers, whilst the branches of the exhalant 

 system, into which the ciliated chambers open with wide apertures, are always 

 much larger than the chambers themselves. Sperm-balls and embryos were 

 observed in S. e. massa by P. E. Schulze. The most highly developed embryos 

 observed in the body of the mother were elongate, cylindrical, convex at one 

 end and concave at the other. The embryo consists of a single layer of very 

 slender and long ectoderm-cells on the surface, and it is filled with a hyaline 

 substance, in which numerous cells are imbedded. The nuclei of these cells are 

 much larger than the nuclei of the ectoderm-cells. These cells of the interior 

 possess numerous fine processes, M'hich anastomose with each other and appa- 

 rently also with the thread-like centripetal ends of the ectoderm-cells. The 

 whole of the embryo is colourless, with the exception of the ectoderm-cells 

 which clothe the concave depression at the end. An Oscillaria, which 

 P. E. Schulze names 0. spongelia, is nearly always found in the Mediterranean 

 specimens of this species, and already occurs in the embryo. I have found the 

 same or a very similar alga in the specimens dredged by me on the east coast of 

 Australia, and am inclined to think that it lives symbiotically with the sponge. 



Spongelia elastica, var. lobosa, O. Schmidt. 



Spongelia fistularis, O. Schmidt, Zweites Supplement zu den Spongien des 



Adriatischen Meeres, Seite 28 (1866). 

 Spongelia pallescens, H. J. Carter, "Descriptions and Figures of Deep-sea 



Sponges and their Spicules," Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 



ser. 4, vol. xviii. p. 232 (1876). 

 Spongelia pallescens^ subspecies elastica, var. lobosa, F. E. Schulze, " TJntersuch- 



ungen iiber den Bau und die Entwicklung der Spongien. — VI. Die Gat- 



timg Spongelia," Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaftliche Zoologie, Band xxxii. 



Seiten 150, 154 (1879). 

 Spongelia perforata, 0. Schmidt, Die Spongien des Adriatischen Meeres, 



Seite 28 (1862). 



Large, erect, massive or lobose sponges, which are attached by a narrow base 

 and attain a height of 300 millim. The surface is covered with conuli, on an 

 average 2-5 millim. high and 2-5-3-5 millim. apart. The oscula are 4-10 

 millim. wide, and scattered over the prominent parts of the sponge. The colour 

 of the living sponge is violet on the surface and greyish in the interior. Dry 

 skeletons are pretty stiff, but compressible and very elastic. 



The slceleton is confined to the septa which divide the radial lacunose tracts 

 from each other, so that it appears more or less honeycombed with cells 3-8 

 millim. wide. F. E. Schulze made a slight confusion in establishiug this vaiiety. 

 He calls it, in the place where it is mentioned for the first time, ramosa {I. c. 



