408 M. E. Perrier on the 



Holophcea ccerulea, sp. n. 



Female. — Primaries and secondaries uniformly dark bluish 

 black. The head, antennae, thorax, and legs black ; abdomen 

 dark glossy blue-black ; the collar and the edges of the tegulse 

 bright red. 



Expanse 1^ inch. 



Bab. Ecuador {in the Hope Collection, Mas. Oxford). 



Atyphopsis roseiceps, sp. n. 



Male. — Primaries and secondaries semlhyaline greyish 

 white, the veins all dark brown, the apex dark brown. The 

 head, antennae, collar, tegulee, thorax, abdomen, and legs 

 pale greyish brown ; the top of the head and the fourth and 

 fifth segments of the abdomen pale red ; the anus black. 



Expanse 1^ inch. 



Hab. S.E. Brazil, Rio Janeiro {in the Hope Collectiony 

 Mus. Oxford). 



The specimen is in very poor condition and much faded. 



LXIII. — On the Place of the Sponges in the Glassificatory 

 System and on the Significance attributed to the Embryonic 

 Layers. By Edmond Perrier"^. 

 In a note published in the last number of the ' Comptes 

 Rendus' M. Yves Delage proposes "to raise the Spongiari^e 

 to the rank of a branch by contrasting them, under the name 

 Enantioderma (eVavr/o?, contrary), with the Coelenterata, 

 if not, indeed, under the title Enantiozoa, with all other 

 animals, Protozoa, Mesozoa, and Metazoa, in which the 

 invagination of the layei's, when they exist, takes place in 

 the normal way." Since as early as 1881, in the first edition 

 of my book 'Les Colonies animales et la Formation des Organ- 

 ismes' (p. 764), I laid claim to a distinct series in the animal 

 kingdom on behalf of the Sponges, and as, since then, I have 

 not ceased to defend this manner of regarding them f, 1 cannot 

 but congratulate mj-self on seeing, after the lapse of sixteen 

 years, my opinion embraced by the industrious professor of 

 the Sorbonne. Since the Sponges were already called by this 

 name, and were also termed Spongiarice, Spongozoa, Purifera, 

 Polystomala, &c., 1 did not, indeed, consider it advisable to 

 add a new number to this already copious list. 



* Translated by E. E. Austen from the ' Comptes Rendus,' t. cxxvi. 

 no. 8 (February 21, 1898), pp. o79-o83. 



t Cf. my ' Trait(5 de Zoologie,' pp. 407 and 537. Huxley, in 1874, in 

 his embryog-enic classification, already separated the Sponges from the 

 Ccelenterata under the name Polystomata ; Milne-Edwards, in 1855, 

 and de Blainville, in 1822, had treated them in the same way. But the 

 former associated them with the Infusoria, tlie latter with the Jjifusoria 

 and the Corallina. 



