Sponges from the Atlantic Ocean. 397 



from station 82 = 312 fathoms, and the latter from 65 = 345 



fathoms. 



- Although Podospongia Lovenii is furnished with a long 



stem like Cometella^ and LatruncuUa cratera is laminiform 



incrusting, there is so little difference between the shape and 



disposition of their spicules, that I cannot help thinking that 



both ought to have been put under the same generic name. 



Again, while Schmidt places his genus Conietella among 

 his SuberitidinEB, he places LatruncuUa cratera under his 

 Desmacidinffi. But if Podospongia and LatruncuUa be but 

 species of the same genus, as I have above assumed, and the 

 structure of CometeUa, especially C. stel/ata, Sdt., be closely 

 allied to that of Podospongia Lovemi {which is the case), then 

 it appears to me that all these should come under the Suberites 

 where Schmidt has placed his, Conietella, if not Schmidt's lami- 

 niform SceiJtrella regalis also, whose body- or linear spicule, 

 according to the type specimen in the British Museum, is like 

 that of the rest, viz. acuate, smooth, fusiform, while the 

 sceptre-like flesh-spicule only differs from that of LatruncuUa 

 in the presence of spines over its rays and of three forms of the 

 anchoratc, Avhich ''forms," as Schmidt has observed (Atlant. 

 Spongienf. p. 58), are certainly very remarkable; but still they 

 are but flesh-spicules, the value of which in specific distinction 

 is, as I have before stated, not always of much consequence. 



Geodia nodastrella, n. sp. (PI. XVI. fig. 45.) 



General form irregularly tuberous (like a potato) when large 

 spheroidal when small ; free or fixed, presenting one or more 

 points of attachment according to the circumstances and situa- 

 tion under which it has grown, with here and there large, 

 deep depressions of the surface. Colour yellowish opaque 

 white. Sui'face even, presenting here and there the deep 

 depressions mentioned, bottomed by a cribriform structure. 

 Dermis consisting of a reticulated layer of sarcode charged 

 with minute nodastrelloids (PL XVI. fig. 45,^, Ic) ; stelliferous 

 in appearance, on account of the interstices being most deve- 

 loped in patches linked together by the general reticulation ; 

 supported on bundles of small, dermal, acerate spicules that 

 project from the subjacent petrous crust (fig. 45, /?),which con- 

 sists of an agglomeration of siliceous balls, held together by 

 sarcode charged with nodastrelloids, and pierced by numerous 

 holes (which respectively are overlaid with the stelliform patches 

 of the dermal reticulation iust mentioned) opening internally 

 into the great marginal cavities of the pore-system. Pores 

 consisting of the interstices of the dermal reticulation, opening 



