108 Mr. H. J. Carter on 



Hitherto I have had very few opportunities of examining 

 any but dried specimens from this coast of South Australia, 

 and these, from their worn appearance, have evidently been 

 picked off the beaches there ; but now I am in possession of 

 359 specimens which have been taken direct from their natural 

 habitat, out of which 59 have been dried, and all dredged in 

 the neighbourhood of Port Phillip Heads, at the beginning of 

 1884; "besides which, another consignment has been sent to 

 me by Mr. Wilson which I am expecting every day, that is, 

 as soon as the ship (' Sarah Grice ') in which they have been 

 forwarded shall have arrived. 



Of the spirit-preserved specimens Mr. Wilson states that 

 the galvanized iron boxes with wide circular apertures and 

 covers (like tea-chests), in which they are contained, 

 having been partly filled with methylated spirit, were thus 

 kept ready in the boat to receive the sponges as they were 

 being brought up by the dredge ; but before they were cast 

 into it, each specimen was numbered on vellum, in black-lead 

 pencil, and the number entered in a note-book together with 

 the colour of the sponge at that moment, its locality, and the 

 depth of water in which it was dredged, while copy of this 

 was also sent to me by post, and the sponges not disturbed 

 again until the boxes, subsequently filled up with spirit and 

 hermetically sealed down, came into my possession. Thus it 

 may be assumed that they reached me in very good condition, 

 which is the case. On the other hand, the dried specimens, 

 after having been taken on shore, were carefully soaked in 

 fresh water until their sea-salt was entirely extracted, and then 

 dried, so that they, as specimens, are infinitely superior to 

 those picked up on the beaches ; still the latter method has its 

 advantages, for in no way can we get the fibrous skeletons, 

 especially of the keratose sponges, so clean and favourable for 

 description as when they have been thoroughly washed out 

 by putrefaction of the sarcode and subsequent exposure to the 

 friction of the waves on the sea-shore. 



I will now commence the " descriptions," to which I have 

 above alluded, with 



Esperia parasitica, n. sp. (PI. IV. fig. 1, a-h.) 



Parasitic, growing over the sand-cored or sand-axiated 

 fibre of a dead Psammonematous sponge so as to entirely 

 conceal it under cover of an Esperian structure. Specimen 

 oblong, somewhat compressed, square as if cut off (? by the 

 dredge) at one end, rounded at the other. Consistence elastic, 

 puffy like a hair-stuffed pillow, from the elastic nature of the 

 Psammonematous structure inside. Colour grey. Surface 



