Sjjonges from South Australia, 515 



abundant as the ova, if not more so. It is a long elliptical 

 cell, more or less slightly curved and more or less round 

 at the free end, which sometimes appears to be flattened 

 for a minute distance and sometimes doubly papillated, but 

 the latter very indistinctly, and therefore not satisfactorily 

 determinable ; this at the other end opens widely into a long- 

 caudal tubular appendage, which becomes somewhat contracted 

 in the middle, to expand again into a suctorial or trumpet- 

 shaped form at its free extremity. In size the total length is 

 about 33-6000ths incli, of which 12 x 6-6000ths go to the cell 

 or head and 21-6000ths to the tail, which is about l-6000th 

 in. in diameter at the extremity. The cell presents a large 

 refractive nucleus at the free end, and the rest is tilled with 

 equally refractive spherical granules of about half the size of 

 the nucleus, which can be traced as they issue through the 

 tail, and sometimes form a heap at the end, where they have 

 exuded. What this body is I am unable to conceive, unless 

 it is a parasite which, like the minute Crustacea, infests the 

 specimen. 



Besides the large ova and these bodies &c. there are also 

 small cells from 3 to 6-6000ths in. in diameter, sometimes 

 nucleated, but always filled with spherical refractive granules 

 like those of the yelk in the ova. Are these the spermatozoid 

 cysts or cells ? They, like the ova, are mixed up with the 

 spongozoa, which are only about l^-6000th or l-4000th in. 

 in diameter — measurements which could not have been made 

 here or in the other instances had not the greater part of 

 these sponges been, as they still remain, in an excellent state of 

 preservation for this purpose. 



8. Clathrina latituhulata (provisional, incertie sedis). 



Agglomerated. Composed of a comparatively large, more 

 or less contorted and anastomosing tube about ^ in. in dia- 

 meter, swollen or dilated at short distances into rounded forms 

 which give it an irregularly knotted appearance, on each of 

 which knots or prominent parts there is a single vent or none 

 at all. Colour sponge-brown when fresh, whitish outside 

 when dry. Surface even, composed of large radiate spicules 

 interunited by more or less defined areas of cribriform sarcode. 

 Pores large, represented by the cribrate areas. Vents single, 

 naked, on the prominent parts of the lobes or dilated 

 portions. Structure consisting of a very thin wall, most 

 of which is cortex or surface- structure, not averaging more 

 than -^ in. in thickness, composed of two or more layers of 

 large and small radiates, held together by the sarcode of the 



