Sponge from South Australia. 287 



ends in giving to the former its characteristic smoothness — 

 that is, not corticate ; charged internally with ampullaceous 

 sacs (more or less indistinct now from defective preser- 

 vation), varying in shape from circular to pyriform, probably 

 according to their position, accompanied everywhere by globu- 

 lar, light-refracting, transparent, fatty-looking bodies in great 

 abundance, especially towards the surface, but with no sepa- 

 rate groups of pigment-bearing granules, as seen in Ghondrosia 

 reniformis &c. ; traversed throughout by the water-vascular 

 system, whicli, towards the surface, presents the usual inflations 

 or lacunce that, in a smaller form and in line just under the skin, 

 in some parts, represent the so-called " subdermal cavities," 

 into which the pores immediately over them empty themselves 

 by short canals. The glary, light-refracting, cell-like bodies 

 may be single and spherical or grouped in different degrees 

 of duplicate subdivision, regular or irregular in size, altered 

 from their globular form only by becoming flattened where in 

 contact with each other ; they are all more or less filled with 

 daughter-cells, which from the transparency of the mother- 

 cells can easily be seen within them ; thus the glary bodies 

 appear to increase by fissuration as well as by endogenous 

 development ; the daughter-cells also vary in size, but for the 

 most part present themselves under the form of minute gran- 

 ules which, by reflected light, appear to be of the same com- 

 position as the mother-cells, but by transmitted light as.suine 

 a dark brown colour, under which circumstances they present 

 the appearance of the brown pigment granules of Ghondrosia 

 reniformis &c. ; thus it is the surface of these granules in 

 the latter case which becomes brown. The glary bodies are 

 the most striking elements in the composition of the internal 

 structure from their great abundance, being incomparably 

 more numerous than in Lhondrosia reniformis and almost 

 indistructible, since, with the exception of iodine, which gives 

 them a light amber tint, they are not only unaffected by 

 acids or alkalies but, short of actual burning or putrefactive 

 decomposition, appear to remain almost unaltered, as drying 

 and mounting a thin microscopic fragment in balsam, accom- 

 panied by much heat, testifies. They have been faithfully 

 described and illustrated by iSchultze in Ghondrosia reniformis 

 {' Zeitschrift f. wiss. Zoologie,' Bd. xxix. pp. 20, 21, Taf. viii. 

 figs, y, 10), to which I must refer the reader for farther obser- 

 vations on them. Of course there are no spicules but those 

 which are oi' foreign origin. Size of specimen 3 inches high 

 by 5 X 5 inches horizontally. 



Hab. Marine; growing over, in, and amongst marine de- 

 tritus. 



