486 Dr. J. E. Gray on Dr. Bowerbank’s Paper on Hyalonema. 
thus.” It is Professor Max Schultze, MM. Milne-Edwards, 
Haime, and Valenciennes (all zoologists of great eminence) who 
regard the animal of Hyalonema as a parasitic species of Cor- 
ticifera or, as they call it, Palythoa, or of Zoanthus; so it is 
these zoologists, and not I, that should have been warned; 
for I have always regarded the animal of the Glass Rope as a 
peculiar genus for the very reason Dr. Bowerbank assigns, and 
called it Hyalonema, the name he quotes! I can only consider 
this, like the other charges in his paper, a proof of the haste 
in which he must have penned his reply to my observations ; 
and I am convinced that, when he has properly examined the 
anatomy of the specimen, and considered the subject, he will 
find that he cannot establish his theory against the unanimous 
opinion of such experienced zoologists. Indeed one cannot 
understand how Dr. Bowerbank ever could have fallen into the 
unaccountable zoological blunder of describing as an osculum of 
a sponge the large well-developed zoanthoid polype which had, 
before he published a word on the subject, been referred to its 
proper group by the celebrated naturalists above named, while 
its anatomy had been figured by Professor Brandt, unless it be 
assumed that he is very imperfectly acquainted with the litera- 
ture of the subject on which he writes—an assumption that 
would explain many lacunze in his work on British Sponges, and 
the fact of so many names in that work being followed by 
“ Bowerbank :” in some entire pages the name occurs as every 
third word. 
I think, if Dr.’Bowerbank will read Senhor Bocage’s paper 
with care, he will find that he has misunderstood it, and that 
Senhor Bocage does mean by the thin end the one that in the 
Japan specimen is inserted in the sponge; otherwise I should 
fear that Dr. Bowerbank lays himself open to the accusation 
which he makes against Professor Owen in his description of 
Euplectella. 
Whatever theory may be entertained about the rope-lke 
bundle of spicula which I consider the axis of the coral, there 
can be no doubt that the bark on the axis is a zoophyte allied 
to Zoanthus. Dr. Bowerbank alone amongst naturalists denies 
this fact: he considers that “the basal sponge, the spiral axis, 
and its coriaceous envelope are really parts of one and the safe 
animal,” and that animal a sponge. He should recollect that 
this is not the first time he has made a mistake of the kind, 
as when he described the case of the egg of a leech as a sponge. 
I cannot but regard the “columnal cloacal system and its 
oscula” in Hyalonema as the myth of a microscopist. 
Is Dr. Bowerbank certain that none of the Gorgoniadee secrete 
silica? Some French zoologists have stated that they do. 
