45 



American Spongologist, in his ' Revision of the North 

 American Poriferae,' published in the Memoirs of the Boston 

 Society of Natural History for the year 1876, writes thus : 

 " The coarsest varieties of the European sponges are finer, 

 firmer, and more elastic than the finest of the corresponding 

 American sub-species. This is directly traceable to the 

 larger amount of foreign matter included in their primary 

 fibres, the looser mess of the fibres as a whole, which are 

 also comparatively coarser, and to the larger and more 

 numerous cloacal channels of the American sponges." A 

 type corresponding precisely with the fine cup-shaped 

 toilet sponge of the Levant is not met with in the Bahama 

 waters, its place being most nearly occupied by a form 

 having the popular title of the reef or glove sponge, and 

 technically known as Spongia officinalis, van tubiilifera. Its 

 contour is more usually dom.e-shaped, though often very 

 irregular, and it may be fistular or even dendritic. The 

 skeleton consists of very fine closely interwoven fibres. 

 One or more cloacal oscules open upon the top of the 

 sponge, while the remaining general surface is perforated 

 by numerous very regularly distributed minute porous 

 apertures. In old specimens the fibre becomes very brittle 

 and unfit for domestic use. It habits are eminently grega- 

 rious, and the localities it more usually affects are a hard 

 bottom or reef in a depth of five or six feet below the 

 surface of the water. The largest examples recorded 

 yielded a measurement of eight inches in height and 

 about twenty in circumference. A sponge that agrees very 

 closely, both in form and structure, with the Mediterranean 

 bath or honeycomb sponge is typified by the Bahaman 

 variety known as the Sheep's-wool sponge {Spongia equina, 

 var. gossypind). This is by far the most valuable and 

 important sponge variety of the Bahama series, its market 



