Grayclla, Usculiiia, and Cliona. 79 



Thus the presence of the same kind of papilliforni inlialant 

 and exciuTent organs, and the same kind of spicules, arranged 

 in the same manner in these three sponges, seems to me indu- 

 bitably to claim for them all the same family. 



It might with justice be stated that the specimen of Grayella 

 which I described was also preserved in spirit, and that I also 

 decided " upon resemblances " the offices of the oscular and 

 inhalant papilljB respectively ; and, further, it is possible that, 

 in the living state, these papillaj might have presented different 

 forms ; perhaps the latter might have presented a fimbriated 

 margin. But, be this as it may, he must be obtuse indeed 

 who could not see in my illustration of Grayella cyatlwphora 

 (which is as true to nature as I could make it) what I saw in 

 the actual specimen, viz. which is which ; and it is this which 

 I fancy that -I can see in Lacaze-Duthiers's illustrations of 

 Osculina polystomella^ chiefly through my observations on the 

 living Cliona^ although I acknowledge that the differences of 

 the two systems in 0. polystomella are not so unmistakably 

 marked as they are in Orayella cyathophora. 



Grayella cyathophora and Osculina j^olystomella appear to 

 me to be free forms of the Clioniada;, such as the so-called 

 genus RaphyruSj which is but a free form of Cliona celata. 



The piece of oyster-shell on which I have made my obser- 

 vations is too free from foreign organisms, both animal and 

 vegetable, for me to suspect that I have been confounding more 

 than one kind of sponge with another, as has been imputed to 

 Mr. Hancock by Dr. Bowerbank (Ray Soc. Pub. 1866, ^ Mono- 

 graph of Brit. Sponges,' vol. ii. p. 216). Undoubtedly it is 

 Cliona nortJiumhrica, so truthfully described and illustrated 

 by Mr. Hancock in the ' i\.nnals ' [1. c), and under " Pione " 

 in Dr. J. E. Gray's proposed arrangement of the Spongiada) 

 (Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. May 9, 1867, p. 525). Undoubtedly, 

 too, if the almost liquid Myxogastres can work their way 

 through hard wood to the surface, if the like delicate endophytes 

 Chytridium, Pythiuniy &c. can pierce the horn-like coverings 

 of Algai, and the soft cell of Zygnema can dissolve its prison- 

 walls for exit and conjugation, the amceboid sponge can burrow 

 among the layers of an oyster-shell for its subsistence — views so 

 ably put forth by Mr. Hancock {I. c.) that I am only astonished 

 how Dr. Bowerbank [op. cit. p. 221) could treat such ^' patient 

 merit " so unworthily. 



Almost all that I have stated was written in other and 

 better words by one of my earliest and kindest friends and 

 teachers. Dr. Grant, in 1827 (Edin. New Phil. Journ. vols. i. 

 & ii.), who, at that comparatively early period in the investi- 

 gation of the nature of the Spongiadae, assigned the papilli- 



