SPONGES. 217 



collenchymatous ectosome, containing a good many brown pigment cells. Cylindrical 

 hands or cords of elongated fibrous cells are developed as usual. 



LENDENFELD describes the species, apparently from a dry specimen, from the 

 American coast of the North Atlantic. Under these circumstances the identification 

 may seem somewhat hazardous, but the species is so well characterised by its general 

 form, its colour and texture, and its peculiar skeleton arrangement, that I do not 

 think there can be much doubt about it. Of course, it is possible that there has 

 been a mistake about the locality of the type specimen, which is in the British 

 Museum Collection. 



II. N. 57 (Gulf of Manaar). 



Phyllospongia, EHLERS. 



Spongiidae of thin, lamellar form, often cup-shaped. With a close-meshed skeleton . 

 network of slender horny fibre. 



Phyllospongia papyracea (EsPRR), var. Plate XIV., fig. 6. 



1798-1806, Spongia papyracea, ESPKU (6); 1870, Phyllospongia papyracea, Kin, Kits (58); 

 1877, Phyllospongia papyracea, HYATT (69); 1884, Phyllospongia papyracea, KIULKY (16) ; 

 1889, Phyllospongia papyracea, ;<(/.-., LENDENFELD (66). 



This variety is represented in the collection by a fine dry specimen, of which a 

 photograph is reproduced in Plate XIV., fig. 6. The specimen is frondose, proliferous 

 and decumbent, and has apparently been attached to the substratum at many points. 

 The thickness of the fronds is about 1'25 millims. The consistence (when perfectly 

 dry) is stiff and rather fragile, the colour light brownish-yellow. The upper surfaces of 

 the fronds are marked with feebly developed concentric and radiating ridges, and also 

 by numerous narrow grooves, frequently arranged in a branching or stellate manner 

 and probably containing minute exhalant apertures. The lower surface is entirely 

 free from such grooves. Both surfaces appear minutely reticulate under a lens, and 

 neither possesses a continuous sand-cortex, though there is a good deal of sand 

 scattered on the upper surface. 



The skeleton is a close network of very pale-coloured horny fibres usually about 

 0'02 millim. in diameter. The fibres are mostly free from foreign matter, but the 

 primary lines, radiating to the surface, contain many comparatively large sand-grains. 



Except for the presence of the stellate or branching grooves on the upper surface 

 and the sand-grains in the primary fibres, this species agrees very closely with the 

 figures and description of the type given by ESPER and EHLERS. As the type came 

 from Southern India (Tranquebar), it is not likely that the Ceylon form is more than 

 varietally distinct. 



The species has been previously recorded from Tranquebar (ESPER) ; Cape of Good 

 Hope (HYATT) ; and Mozambique (RIDLEY). LENDENFELD also records it from 



2 F 



