THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY, 



[FOURTH SERIES.] 



" per litora spargite museum, 



Naiades, et circiim vitreos considite fontes : 

 Pollice virgineo tcneros hic carjiite flores : 

 Floribus et pictum, divae, replete canistrum. 

 At V08, o NymphsB Craterides, ite sub undas; 

 Ite, recurvato variata eorallia trunco 

 Vellite muscosis e rupibus, et mihi conchas 

 Ferte, Dete pelagi, et pingui conchylia succo." 



iV. Parthenii Giannettcuii Eel. 1. 



No. 19. JULY 1869. 



I. — A Descriptive Account of four Subspherous Sjwnges^ Ara- 

 bian and British, icitJi General Observations. By H. J. 

 Carter, F.R.S. &c. 



[Plates I. & II.] 



The Subspherous Sponges, like potatoes in appearance, analo- 

 gous also in form to the Ljcoperdons, the large Spha3ria3, and 

 the tuberose Fungi, are not unfrequentlj present among the 

 exuvife of the sea-shore, where, after having been freed from 

 their original attachments, and drifting in a living state about 

 the bottom of the sea for awhile, they are at last landed by the 

 waves. 



Having specimens of two species, which I found on the 

 south-east coast of Arabia (one of which was gathered alive), 

 and of two others found on the beach at Budleigh-Salterton 

 {also alive), I resolved, for the sake of direct information, to 

 examine them respectively ; and bringing to my aid Dr. 

 Johnston's work on the British Sponges (1842), and Dr. 

 Bowerbank's papers on the Spongiadw, published successively 

 in 1862 and 1864 by the Royal and Ray Societies, I found so 

 much still left untold that I further resolved to draw each of 

 these sponges themselves, and, placing their elementary parts 

 beside them respectively, to write a simple description also of 

 each (that is, confining myself as much as possible to familiar 

 terms in our own language), and to follow the whole by ge- 



Ann.& Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 4. TW. iv. 1 



