Sjyonges from the Atlantic Ocean. 219 



In Cladorhiza ahyssicola^ Sars,tlie general form is a branched, 

 shrub-like sponge, rising from a thick, solid, Esjjeria-Wkt stem 

 of spicules (that is, a stem very like in appearance to a glass rope, 

 covered by a cortical layer of sarcode in its natural state), in 

 which the branches are very numerous, often anastomosing by 

 contact, and passing into a massive structure ; branches echi- 

 nated with short filamentous processes, and covered generally 

 with a parenchymatous sarcode charged with the flesh-spicules 

 of the species, viz. a small inequianchorate and a veiy large 

 bihamate, more or less contort, with everted, fine, whip-like 

 ends. Although the skeletou-spicule is similar to that of 

 Chondrocladia virgata, Wyv. Thomson, and the anchorate 

 presents one end like the anchorate of this sponge, with alate 

 appendages on the shaft, fi^illy developed (fig. 22), the whole at 

 the other end is aborted, so as to demand for it the term " in- 

 equianchorate " (fig. 22, c) ; while the bihamate, on the other 

 hand, far exceeds in size that of Chondrocladia^ being 37 by 

 1 -6000th inch in its greatest diameters. I have figured the 

 inequianchorate (PI. XIV. fig. 22) for comparison, on the same 

 scale, with the equianchorate of Chondrocladia (fig. 20) and 

 that of Halichondria ahyssi (fig. 27), to be described hereafter ; 

 but the bihamate is so large that I have not room for the figure 

 of this spicule in this plate. (It seems to me that, in sponges 

 possessing both the anchorate and bihamate flesh-spicules, the 

 larger size of one is always accompanied by a lesser size 

 of the other.) Besides these difi"erences, the opaque cream- 

 yellow colour of Cladorhiza abyssicola contrasts strongly 

 with the translucent, greenish-grey one of Chondrocladia 

 virgata. 



The branched sponge named by Dr. Gray " Axos Cliftonir^ 

 (" Notes on Arrangement of Sponges," Proc. Zool. Soc. 1867, 

 p. 546), from Nichol Bay, West Australia, must be very like 

 Chondrocladia virgata^ as the following extract from a note, 

 with rough sketch, kindly handed over to me by Dr. Gray, 

 shows, wherein it is stated to have been " found growing on a 

 piece of rock about a foot square, in 27 branches, 2 feet long." 

 In Axos Clijtonii the short, triangular, compressed processes on 

 the stem, whose bases respectively rest longitudinally on the 

 latter, are arranged in an aliform manner spirally round the 

 stem — the skeleton- spicule, of which there is only one form, 

 being acuate, and not fusiform, and the flesh-spicule, of which 

 also there is only one form, being like a Maltese cross ^\f\\\\ six 

 arms, two of which are in a line perpendicular to the plane of 

 the " cross," but so densely charging the parenchymatous sar- 

 code which imbeds the bundles of skeleton-spicules forming the 

 axis, that, altogether, we cannot help seeing in Axos Clif' 



15* 



