224 



•ENDEAVOUE" SCIENTIFIC EESULTS. 



/ 



the branches, over the edges of w hich they pass I'rom one sur- 

 face to the other ; traces of them are also to be seen upon the- 

 stalk. There is nothing to indicate that the furrows have any 

 special morphological value. 



The specimen, which is a dry one, bears 

 the remains of a whitish spicular encrus- 

 tation. The exposed surface is irregu- 

 larly, though fairly closely, dotted with 

 roundish pinhole-like (subdermal) "pores." 

 The consistency is firm and tough ; the 

 texture, ver}' finely fibrous at the surface, 

 more coarsely so within ; the colour, 

 bro\\nish yellow. 



In its general pattern the skeleton some- 

 what resembles that of C. riibens, inas- 

 much as in its superficial parts the fibres 

 are uniformly very slender, with pauci- or, 

 more frequently, uni-serially arranged spi- 

 cules, and form a reticulation in which the 

 main and connecting fibres lose their dis- 

 tinctiveness, whilst in its more central 

 parts the fibres attain to relatively stout 

 proportions, reaching a diameter of 80 to 

 120 }i. The two species also agree in the 

 comparative scarcity of their acantho- 

 styles, in the circumstance that these spi- 

 cules are often entirely enclosed within the 

 fibre-spongin, and in the presence of echin- 

 ating principal styli and of occasional 

 spicules intermediate in form between 

 them and the accessory styli. The present 

 species, is, however, well distinguished in 

 this respect that the intrafibral spicules, 

 which include an appreciable number of auxiliary, as well 

 as occasional accessory, megascleres, are not collected 

 into an axial strand, but have a loose disorderly arrange- 

 ment ; and, further, the principal styli, which are much 

 larger than in (\ rub ens, show no difference in stoutness 

 between those of the main longitudinal fibres and those 

 which occur extra-fibrally and in the superficial fibres. Except 

 in the main longitudinal fibres, cross sections of which would 

 usually intersect three or four spicules, the coring spicules are 

 most frequently uniserially arranged. Owing to the way in 

 which the connecting fibres inter-reticulate between the main 

 fibres, the skeleton is of a most irregular pattern — particularly 

 in its superficial parts, where the fibres form a web-like mesh- 

 work in which as a rule main fibres are not recognisable, and 

 in which the sides of the meshes are usually of but a spicule's 



Fig. 46— C. Par- 

 ana, a Principal 

 style, b Auxiliary 

 style, c Acantho- 

 style. <1 Toxon. 



