Sponges from South Australia. 281 



But to return to the more legitimate object of this commu- 

 nication, it may be stated tliat, in 1881, I published a paper 

 on the " Ceratina," in which some new species were described 

 and illustrated, together with observations on- the develop- 

 ment of the "fibre" (^Annals,' vol. viii. pp. 101 and 113, 

 respectively, pi. ix.) ; and in 1882 other species from the 

 West Indies were added [ib. vol. ix. p. 268 &c.). Since which 

 nothing occurred to cause me to return to the subject 

 until the arrival of Mr. Wilson's sponges from " Port Phillip 

 Heads" in 1885, to the descriptions of which I have now to 

 add the following supplement. 



Dendrilla rosea, Lendenfeld, var. digitata, Cart. 



With reference to the specimen which I described in 1885, 

 under the name of " Luffaria digitata " (' Annals,' vol. xv. 

 p. 201), I now find on reexamination of it, aided by Dr. R. 

 V. Lendenfcld's valuable description and illustrations (Zeit- 

 schrift f. wiss. Zoologie, Bd. xxxviii. p. 271, Taf. x. figs. 3 

 and 4, a copy of which he kindly sent me), that it is not a 

 " Lvjfaria^'' but an " Aplysina. " (following Schmidt's dis- 

 tinctive characters) ; still, the designation " digitata " applies 

 to my form, which is that with which, through Mr. Wilson's 

 specimens, I am most familiar, better than to that of Dr. 

 Lendenfcld's typical illustration, although they both present 

 the same dendritic, t^ianastomosing character of the fibrous 

 skeleton, of which therefore mine can only be considered a 

 variety, as above designated. 



Nothing can be more striking than the differences in struc- 

 ture of tiic LufFarida and the Aplysinida (which certainly 

 I overlooked in the present instance), inasmuch as the fibre 

 of the former is unyielding and almost wiry in consistence, 

 both wet and dry, with a continuous, anastomosing, central, 

 tubiforra core ; while in the latter it is more or less flaccid with 

 an Knanatomosing core. The course of the core, too, in 

 Luffarida is uniform, while in the Aplysinida it is interrupted 

 transversely by parabolical lines of growth, which apparently 

 is an unfailing sign of tlie fibre. 



Of the LufFarida there is an abundance of specimens in the 

 British Museum, viz. tubular and cylindrical, branched and 

 solid respectively, many of which are very large, ex. gr. the 

 specimen from the Gulf of Honduras, described under the 

 name of '■'Luffaria Arclieri'''' by Mr. Th. H. Higgin, F.L.S. 

 (' Annals,' 1875, vol. xvi. p. 22-^), which is a curved trumpet- 

 shaped tube, 3 ft. 9 in. long, and 5 in. in diameter at the free end. 

 Most of these specimens come from the West Indies, 

 but there are others in the collection which were purchased 



Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 5. Vol. xviii. 19 



