41^ HENRY B. BRADY. 



branches are seldom perfect, owing to their delicate nature, 

 but when they have been accidentally protected and remain 

 complete, they show smooth, rounded apertures formed of 

 clear shell-substance. 



The best specimens of Sagenella frondescens have been 

 found in Nullipore dredged off the Admiralty Islands, at a 

 depth of from 16 to 35 fathoms. 



G^ewws.— ASTRORHIZA, Sandahl. 



Astrorhiza, Sandahl, M. Sars, Carpenter, Norman. 

 Haeckelina, Bessels. 

 Astrodiscus, T. E. Schulze. 



AsTRORHizA CATENATA, Normmi. PI. IV, figs. 12, 13. 



AstrorUza catenata, Norman, 1876. 'Proc. Roy. Soc.,' vol. xxv, p. 213. 



The Rev. A. M. Norman (loc. cit.) describes this species in 

 the following words : — " The chambers are more or less ovoid, 

 not flattened, as in the previously known forms, but equally 

 rounded on the sides and above and below ; the spoke-like 

 pseudopodian processes, instead of being all on one plane, 

 as in A, limtcola, radiate in all directions. Several speci- 

 mens occurred in which two chambers were united together, 

 a fresh chamber being developed at the end of one of the 

 radiating processes ; and it is probable that, in its most per- 

 fect state, the animal would consist not only of a series of 

 chambers extending on all sides, as in A. limicola, but of 

 other chambers superimposed on these, so that the whole 

 animal would be of most complex type. The arenaceous in- 

 vestiture consists of fine sand-grains and sponge-spicules 

 firmly (not loosely, as in A. arenaria) cemented together, and 

 is of a ruddy hue, but not ferruginous, Astrorhiza catenata, 

 n. sp., may be the name to distinguish this animal." 



My friend Mr. Norman has recognised the two figures 

 (PI. IV, figs. 12, 13) as pertaining to his species, a fact which 

 had not suggested itself to me, so little impression does verbal 

 description, unaccompanied by drawings, make upon the mind 

 in such cases. I should have had much hesitation in placing 

 my own specimens in the same genus with either the muddy, 

 discoidal, radiate Astrorhiza limicola, or with an organism 

 having the thick, soft, sandy walls and flat branching con- 

 tour of Dr. Carpenter's species ; but their number is 

 small, and they scarcely afford a means of forming a 

 confident' opinion ; at any rate I am not prepared to debate 

 the point in opposition to the views of so experienced a 

 zoologist. The largest example in my collection is less than 



