26 Mr. H. J. Carter on the Gumminea?. 



Thus commenced our knowledge of this family. 

 In 1859 (Archiv f. Anat.) Lieberkiihn seems to have pub- 

 lished (for I have not the means of referring to his papers here) 

 observations on Halisarca Dujardinii made in Heligoland ; 

 and to him we are indebted, according to Schmidt, for having 

 more accurately identified this organism with the true sponges 

 (Die Spong. adriat. Meeres, p. 79, 1862). 



Finally, Schmidt, in a former part of the same publication 

 (p. 36 et seq.), established a family for this and similar species 

 by the name of " Gummine^e," under which are included 

 the following four genera and six species, viz. : — 1. Gummina : 

 G.gliricauda, G. ecaudata. 2. Chondrilla: C. nucula, C. em- 

 bolophora. 3. Cellulophana : C. pileata. 4. Corticium : G. 

 candelabrum. And further on, at p. 79, under Halisarca, Du- 

 jardin, H. lobularis. In his first " Supplement " to this pub- 

 lication (p. 41, 1864) was added another species of the latter, 

 viz. : — Halisarca guttula. Then follow new species which 

 he received among other sponges from the coast of Algiers 

 (Die Spong. der Kiiste von Algier. p. 1, 1868), viz. : — Chon- 

 drosia, Nardo : C. reniformis, Nardo ; and G. plebeja, Sdt. 

 Finally those mentioned in his ' Atlantisch. Spongicnfauna,' 

 p. 25, 1870, viz. Cellulophana collectrix, Columnitis, n. gen., 

 C. squamata, and Chondrilla phylodes y — making altogether 7 

 genera and 13 species, to which adding Halisarca Dujardinii, 

 a species described and figured by Dr. Emil Selenka under the 

 name of " JLacinia" (Zeitsch. f. wissenschaft. Zool. B. vi. 

 S. 568, Taf. xxxv. figs. 8-10), and the two species above de- 

 scribed gives a total of 17 species. 



Although Selenka claims for his species (which is from 

 Bass's Straits in Australia, cake-shaped, and about 2 inches 

 long by 1 thick) a new genus, on account of the sphasro-stellate 

 spicule with which it is charged being calcareous and not sili- 

 ceous, it seems to me to require further elucidation ; for, in the 

 first place, the sphasro-stellates, in material and form, appear to 

 be almost identical with those which abound in many species 

 of Compound Tunicata not unlike Lacinia in general form, 

 and, in the second place, the anatomical details do not satisfac- 

 torily show that the species is similarly composed to the class 

 of sponges under consideration. The genus is called u La- 

 cinia" and the species L. stellifica. 



While Schmidt gives excellent figures of the general form 

 and spicules of his species, Kolliker, in his ' Feinere Bau der 

 Protozoen,' gives the best illustrations of the softer parts. 



I have not been able to get beyond what Kolliker has here 

 figured and stated, simply because, like Kolliker, my obser- 

 vations have been confined to specimens preserved in spirit ; nor 



