Sponges from South Australia, 145 



of the latter. Size of specimen about | in. in diameter each 

 way. 



Ohs. This species in tlie structure of the body (for, as 

 before stated, there is no differentiation now into cortex and 

 wall, and very little between the excretory canal-system and 

 the cloaca) is very much like TeicJwneUa proUfera, from 

 which, however, it not only differs in general form, but in the 

 presence of the large, stout, curved acerates instead of large 

 quadriradiates on the surface as in the latter, and in a slight 

 tendency to a cloacal termination of the excretory systems, 

 wherein the typical form of the cloaca is becoming lost in the 

 enlargement of its holes and their branching off into the canali- 

 cular structure of the interior. 



40. Leucaltis jloridana^ H., var. australiensis. 



Specimen massive, without particular form, looking as if it 

 had grown over some marine rubbish, stems and stuff of some 

 kind in a floating or unfixed state ; lobed irregularly 5 lobes, 

 where existing, conical, compressed, with or without a mouth, 

 but with no peristome. Colour dirty yellowish brown. Consis- 

 tence firm, hard, especially in the dry state. Surface rough and 

 harsh to the feel, from the projecting rays of large triradiates 

 plentifully mixed with the smaller ones, or staple size of the 

 body, presenting here and there low gentle elevations in 

 tolerable uniformity, and also here and there a tract of granu- 

 lated appearance, consisting of small conical or tent-like forms 

 about l-40th in. in diameter, 1-lOOth in. high, and l-40th in. 

 apart. Pores, as usual, in the reticulation of the surface. 

 Vents numerous, large and small, scattered irregularly over the 

 surface, the larger ones only leading into genuine cloacas, the 

 others into simple dilatations of the structure ; surface of the 

 cloaca smooth, rendered very uneven by large and small holes, 

 at wide but variable distances apart, deeply sunk into the body- 

 structure through wide infundibular depressions which finally 

 end in openings of the canals of the excretory system, echinated 

 apparently as much by the arms of triradiates as by the fourth 

 arm of quadriradiates. Structure of the body consisting of 

 densely cancellated parenchyma traversed by the branches of 

 the excretory canal-system, supported on a skeletal fabric com- 

 posed chiefly of small radiates plentifully mixed with very 

 large ones, undefined either by a cortical layer externally or 

 a cloacal one internally. Spicules of three kinds, viz. acerate, 

 triradiate, and quadriradiate : — 1, acerates, very minute, thin, 

 straight, cylindrical, about 100-6000ths in. long by l-6000th 

 in. in diameter ; 2, triradiates, large and small, more or less 

 equiradiate and equiangular, ray of the former averaging 282 



Ann. d: .Urn/. N. Hist. Ser. 5, Vol. xviii. 10 



