Sponges from South Australia. 311 



fleshy, resilient, firm. Colour, when fresh, " dark grey above, 

 yellowish green below," now dark grey, almost black when 

 dry, lighter internally. Surface uniformly consisting of ob- 

 tuse conuli, in each of which there is a plurality of points 

 corresponding to the ends of the subjacent sandy fibre, grouped 

 together irregularly, about l-8th inch apart ; bound down 

 by a soft, fleshy, fibro-reticulated dermis in which there are 

 no foreign objects ; dermal fibre made up of short, fusiform, 

 granuliferous cells or bodies, transparent fibril la?, and a few 

 elliptical pigmental cells ; tympanized in its interstices by a 

 thin transparent layer of sarcode in which the pores are situ- 

 ated. Vents small, but numerous and indistinct, scattered 

 generally over the surface among the conuli. Internal struc- 

 ture dense, consisting of a mass of short-jointed, reticulated, 

 keratose fibre, in which the foreign material predominates 

 over the keratine, whose interstices are filled up by a fibro- 

 veticulation like that of the dermis, in which also the inter- 

 stices again are tympanized by thin sarcode pierced with 

 holes for inlialent and exhalent purposes respectively (only 

 seen in the dried fragment), the whole forming the paren- 

 chyma of the interior, whose sarcode, together with that of 

 the fibrous dermis, is so inspissated that, on drying, it melts 

 down into an almost corneous consistence of a dark colour, 

 which is very characteristic of the species. Size of spirit- 

 preserved specimen 1 2 in. high by about 4x1 in. hori- 

 zontally in its greatest dimensions. 



Hah. Marine. 



Loc. Port Phillip Heads, South Australia. Depth 20 fath. 



Obs. Compactness of structure, prevalence of sandy fibre, 

 soft, fleshy, fibro-reticulated dermis, and dark colour chiefly 

 characterize this species. There are two other, but dry 

 •specimens, one of which is irregular in form and the other 

 consists of two tongue-shaped erect pieces of nearly equal size, 

 each of which is like that above described, but united together 

 laterally for the greater part of their length. Both are in- 

 tensely hard from the corneous character of the dermal tissue 

 when dried ; in both, too, the dermis is Dearly black, while the 

 interior is compact and of a ochreous yellow colour. Each 

 individual of the double specimen is about 9 in. high by 2j x ^ 

 in. horizontally in its greatest dimensions; when fresh, 

 they were probably nearly double this size. Under the 

 microscope the interstices of the dark dermal fibro-reticulation, 

 when dry, present a white appearance from their being tym- 

 panized by their dermal sarcode in which the pores are situ- 

 ated. The dry specimens are much lighter and harder than 

 the wet one ; but the characters of " consistence" generally 



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