456 Dr. J. E. Gray on the Classification of Sponges. 



India? or is he not aware that it belongs to a different 

 zoological region ? I believe the specimen which Dr. Bower- 

 bank first named is a sponge which Mr. Pratt obtained in 

 Portugal, which he showed me along with the Hippurites 

 which he collected during that excursion, and that it is most 

 probably from Madeira or the Azores ; and Dr. Bowerbank 

 was right when he said that Macandrewia azorica was the 

 type of his then D. Prattii. At any rate I should want much 

 better authority than the very brief examination that Dr. 

 Bowerbank bestowed on Mr. Swinhoe's specimen and the 

 examination of the small piece which he cut away from its base, 

 to convince me that the Formosa sponge is the same as Mr. 

 Pratt's specimen, which is the type of Bowerbank's D. Prattii. 



To obtain a clear view of the value of Dr. Bowerbank's 

 very prolix and apparently minute descriptions, we have only 

 to read the descriptions of Isodictya rohusta and Desmacidon 

 Jeffreysia^ which he now informs us are only fragments of 

 the same sponge which Mr. Norman has formed into a genus 

 under the name of Oceanojna. It is remarkable that the 

 sponges of the same or nearly the same locality, alike in ge- 

 neral form and appearance, should belong to different genera 

 and species. I think we may well say that the microscope 

 may be a most deceptive aid in the hands of a man with 

 strong predisposed opinions, who believes that he has nothing 

 to learn, and works from slides prepared at different times, by 

 different people, and, may be, from different species. 



M. Bocage published a paper on new siliceous sponges of 

 Portugal, in the ' Jornal des Sciencias Math., &c.' (1869), in 

 which he has described some new genera, Discodermia &c. 

 Dr. Oscar Schmidt, in his ' Spongien-Fauna,' which has just 

 appeared, has noticed eighteen species of coral-sponges, di- 

 viding them into two families and ten genera ; but, with the 

 assistance of the detailed figures which accompany the book, 

 and of microscopic slides containing parts of these sponges, 

 which Dr. Schmidt has been kind enough to furnish me with, 

 I have not been able to understand the characters of several 

 of the genera and species. Indeed these coral-like sponges 

 seem to have attracted much attention from many authors ; 

 but still, I may say, they appear to me to require a careful 

 re-examination and illustration. 



Fam. 5. Macandrewiadae. 



Sponge massive or expanded, fixed, fan-shaped or cup- 

 shaped. Skeleton very irregularly reticulate, with roundish 

 openings. 



Macandreivia^ Thconella, Gray, P. Z. S. 1868, p. 565. 



