A, E. Verrill— The Bermuda Islands; Coral Reefs. 331 
belong to the group of horny sponges (Aeratosa), which includes the 
commercial sponges (genus Spongia), but there are very few spe- 
cies in Bermuda waters that are sufficiently fine and elastic to be of 
any value, though two or three species are used by the fishermen for 
boat-sponges and similar rough uses. 
It is quite probable that some of the more valuable Bahama and 
Florida sponges would flourish at Bermuda, if once introduced there 
by artificial means, which could easily be done by vessels having 
live wells. 
Most of the horny sponges while living are dark umber-brown, 
purplish brown, or glossy black, though a few are distinctly yellow, 
purple, or red. The tube-sponges (Zuba or Spinosella), which are 
common and attractive silicious species, are dark yellowish gray to 
grayish brown in life. The most conspicuous of all the sponges is 
a very common, large, soft, bright red species (Zedania ignis) 
which grows in various forms, either encrusting or massive and 
lobate, or even branching. It varies in color from scarlet to bright 
red and dark red, and is often two to three feet across. It belongs 
to the group of monaxid silicious sponges. 
The Bermuda sponges have hitherto been but little studied, 
although large collections have been made.* 
Die Spongien des Meerbusens von Mexico und des Caraibischen Meeres, 
Jena, 1879, 1880, 2 parts. y 
Topsent, E.—Une Réforme dans la Classification des Halichondrina. Mémoirs 
Soc. Zoologique de France, vol. vii, pp. 1-36, 1894. Diagnoses of all the 
genera. 
Introduction a l’Etude Monog. des Monaxonides de France. Classifica- 
tion des Hadromerina. Archives de Zoologie expérimentale et générale, 
ser. 3, vol. vi, 1898, pp. 91-118. Diagnoses of all the known genera. 
The Same, Part III, op. cit., vol. viii, 1900, pp. 1-831, plates i-viii. 
(Descriptions of Hadromerina, bibliography, etc.) 
Whitfield, R. P.—Notice of a New Sponge from Bermuda and of some other 
Forms from the Bahamas. Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. History, New York, vol. 
xiv, pp. 47-50, 1901. 
Wilson, H. V.—The Sponges collected in Porto Rico, in 1899, by the U. S. Fish 
Com. Steamer Fish Hawk. Bull. U.S. Fish Com. for 1900, vol. xx, part 2, 
pp. 3877-411, 1902. 
* Mr. G. Brown Goode and Professor W. N. Rice, in 1876 and 1877, made 
large collections, especially of the horny sponges, some of which were examined 
by Professor A. Hyatt, while preparing his memoirs on that group of Porifera, 
but the bulk of Mr. Goode’s large collection was not received until after Hyatt’s 
second memoir was completed. Part of this collection is now in the Museum of 
