SPONGES, GRAPTOLITES, CORALS. 



69 



Anomalospongla.] 



Naturally enough, my first supposition was that these horizontal 'rays would 

 prove four in number, as in Receptnculites and related genera, and it was not till I 

 began to study the enlarged drawing of the surface (here reproduced in fig. 14, on 

 plate F), which I drew at once under the camera lucida. This figure is not diagram- 

 matical, but represents the parts just as they appeared to me in the microscope.. As 

 shown in figure 14, we have only three instead of four horizontal rays a troublesome 

 fact, because it obliges us in the present, state of our knowledge to refer Anomalo- 

 sponi/ia to the incertw sedes among the sponges. Had four horizontal rays been pres- 

 ent we might have overlooked certain other peculiarities and placed the genus with 

 the Receptaculitidcc, but that can scarcely be recommended now, since it would neces- 

 sitate too great an expansion of the characters of that family. 



Before entering upon a discussion of the relations of the genus to the Receptacu- 

 litidce and other organisms, I shay offer the following diagnosis of the genus and 

 remarks upon the only known species : 



ANOMALOSPONGIA, n. gen. 



Proposed instead of Anomaloides, Ulrich, 1878, Journal Cincinnati Society of Natural 



. History, vol. i, p. 92. 



Sponge hollow, ? obconical, that being the shape of the most complete of the 

 fragmentary specimens at hand ; the walls consisting of definitely arranged spicular 

 elements. Spicules four- rayed, with a small, knob-like summit, probably to be 

 regarded as an undeveloped fifth ray ; one of them (the vertical) thick and strong, sub- 

 cylindrical or club-shaped, its inner extremity pointed, the outer rounded, and pro- 

 duced centrally into a neck-like prolongation from which three very delicate rays 

 spread horizontally. Vertical rays arranged so as to be perpendicular to the surface 

 and each in contact, yet not organically united, with six of its neighbors ; leaving, 

 usually, a small interstice at the angles of junction, and the pointed inner extremity 

 free. Horizontal rays thin, long, tapering toward their extremities, interwoven and 

 overlapping each other three or four times ; each divided longitudinally by a strongly 

 impressed groove, causing them to appear double ; open meshes between these rays 

 normally of triangular shape. Communication between the interior and exterior 

 carried on, apparently, through the small interstices left between the adjoining ver- 

 tical rays. 



The complete form of Anomaloides reticulatus or, as it should now be called, Anoma- 

 losponyia reticulata, is doubtful. It may have been conical, as suggested in the above 

 description, with the base pointed and top open. But it is also possible that it was, 



