Sponge-fauna of Norway. 243 



unknown at the present day. Nor was Fleming wholly to 

 blame for this blunder ; for his type specimen was handed to 

 him by Prof. Jameson *, who had previously erroneously 

 identified it with Miiller's Alcyonium cydonium. Miiller fur- 

 ther contributed his share to the confusion, as appears from 

 the following remarks by Montagu f : — " Miiller has also 

 figured what he considers the Linngean Alcyonium cydonium 

 (Zool. Dan. iii. tab. 81) ; but this is clearly an Alcyonium 

 bearing innumerable polypi ; and we cannot, therefore, think it 

 is the same as the Alcyonium cotoneum of Pallas, which may 

 be the Linnajan Cydonium, and is probably a Spongia " \. 



But, apart from this curious mistake of Fleming's, one 

 fact stands out in the clearest manner ; and that is, the 

 marked distinction which separates Fleming's genus Cydo- 

 nium from Lamarck's genus Geodia. Both were regarded by 

 their authors as allied to Alcyonium; but while Lamarck's 

 was characterized by a depressed cribriform area and a hollow 

 cavity within, Fleming's was carneous internally and with 

 a few congregated oscules on the exterior. Had Flem- 

 ing's genus possessed the same characters as Lamarck's, 

 the name Cydonium might have been cancelled ; as it is, 

 the two genera are independent of each other, and the 

 names Geodia and Cydonium must be equally retained. 

 Fleming's specific description is altogether inadequate, and 

 the appellation Millleri has no more value than a MS. name ; 

 it must therefore yield to that attached to the first adequate 

 description ; and this certainly is zetlandica, Johnston. 



In 1834 Blainville§ adopted with hesitation Fleming's 

 genus Cydonium, though, with his usual inaccuracy, he as- 

 signed it to Jameson. He placed it, as its describer's defi- 

 nition necessitated, close to Alcyonium. Blainville also 

 adopted Lamarck's genus Geodia ; but this he placed with the 

 sponges (Amorphozoa), as Deshayes and Milne-Edwards like- 



* Mem. Wern. Soc. i. p. 563, 1811. f Ibid. ii. p. 117, 1818. 



X [The clear-sighted Montagu was quite right ; the Alcyonium cotoneum 

 of Pallas and the Alcyonium cydonium of Linne are names given to the 

 Geodine sponge so admirably figured by Donati, on whom Linne con- 

 ferred the well-deserved epithet " oculatus Donati." Of this sponge 

 Donati figures, 1750 (!), the external facies, exhibiting the hollow in which 

 would lie the great cribriform oscule (an admirable suction), and the 

 spicula in their proper position and separately. The crust of globates, 

 the dermal porrected spicula, the porrecto- and patento-ternates which 

 support the crust, and the acerates of the body of the sponge are all ex- 

 cellently drawn. The minute stellates the microscope of those days 

 would not reveal ; but there cannot be a doubt that Donati's sponge, which 

 is Linne's Alcyonium cydonium, is most closely related to Cydonium 

 zetlandicum. — Rev. A. M. Nobman.] 



§ Man. d'Act. pp. 525, 534. 



