78 Mr. H.J. Carter on the Sponges 



shell, was found to be charged exclusively with spicules 

 exactly like the large ones of Orayella^ viz. smooth, straight, 

 more or less cylindrical, round at one end and pointed at the 

 other, 38-6000tlis inch long, — a trifle, certainly, less in size, 

 but this does not lessen the significance of the fact. 



To the retiform patches of the exterior, charged with the 

 spicules just mentioned, may be added others of a similar kind 

 without spicules, but composed of spherical vesicles and innu- 

 merable small monociliated sponge-cells, not unlike the " am- 

 pullaceous sac " and its ciliated sponge-cells described in my 

 account of the " Ultimate Structure of Spongilla " (Annals, 

 ser. 2. vol. xx. p. 22, pi. 1 : 1857). 



To what, then, do these observations lead respecting the point 

 in question ? Viz. to the conclusion that Orayella cyathophora^ 

 Osculina polystomella^ and Cliona northumhrica^ if not the 

 Clioniadai generally, all belong to the same family. 



In Cliona northumhrica we have the fimbriated inhalant 

 area and the single-holed papillary vent almost exactly like 

 those figured of Osculina p)olystomella {I. c), if we are to re- 

 gard the latter as inhalant and excurrent openings respectively ; 

 and as this inference is based upon observation of an allied 

 species in the living state, it seems to me more likely to be 

 correct than Schmidt's interpretation, from resemblances, of the 

 offices of these parts on a dead one, however well preserved in 

 spirit ; that is, that Schmidt has, by his own mistake or that 

 of others, assigned the wrong function to the fimbriated pa- 

 pillfe. Surely that little group of pores placed subordinately 

 by the side of an osculum in the same papilla cannot alone 

 be illustrative of the great inhalant system of the beautiful 

 Osculina ! 



Again, the pin-like spicules of Osculina can hardly be said 

 to ditter from those of the Clioniadaj ; while in the fimbriated 

 papilla3 these are arranged in a radiated direction with their 

 points projecting beyond the sarcode, just as the spicules are 

 in the papilla of both Cliona northumhrica and Grayella cya- 

 thophora. Indeed there arc many pin-like spicules of the 

 former exactly like those of Osculina ; and the clavate one, 

 also given by Schmidt in fig. 13, is merely a variety of the 

 nearly sti-aight pin-like spicule when found among the latter. 



Then, as regards Grayella, it is remarkable that the patches 

 of Cliona northumhrica on the outside of the oyster-shell and 

 those of the interior should almost exclusively be charged re- 

 spectively with the same kind of smooth straight, and cmwed 

 spinous spicules which characterize Grayella (Annals, I. c), 

 while the pin-like or larger ones, exclusively of all others, 

 occupy the papilla? of Cliona and project beyond the sarcode, 

 as the spicules in both Grayella and Osculina. 



