NAKKAT1VE OF THE URUISE. 



437 



australis) were very abundant. Smaller Ceta- 

 ceans, probably a kind of Grampus (Orca), were 

 also abundant near the Antarctic Circle, with a 

 high dorsal fin placed at about the middle of the 

 length of then- bodies. 



The dredgings and trawlings during the 

 Antarctic voyage were exceedingly productive, 

 and yielded many new genera and species belong- 

 ing to nearly all the invertebrate groups. In the 

 Zoological Keporfcs already published, species are 

 described belonging to about twenty-five new 

 genera and fifty new species. 



The Hexactinellida. — Professor Franz Bil- 

 liard Schulze, who is engaged in preparing a 

 Report on the Hexactinellida collected during the 

 Expedition, has supplied the following notes : — 



" The Hexactinellida collected by the Chal- 

 lenger Expedition, which were entrusted to 

 • me for the purpose of scientific investigation, 

 were dried, or more or less well-preserved in 

 alcohol of various degrees of strength. Only 

 a few specimens, however, were quite perfect, 

 most of them having been injured in some way 

 or other. Sometimes there were parts entirely 

 wanting, sometimes the sponge was torn, crushed, 

 or the outside had been rubbed off, or sometimes 

 the soft parts had suffered from the invasion of 

 mud or had become dried, as indeed might have 

 been expected considering how most of the speci- 

 mens had been obtained. Of many species only 

 fragments, and of others only isolated spicules 

 were obtained. It was a fortunate circumstance 

 that no means of cleansing, such as washing, 

 maceration, or the like, had been adopted ; by 

 these processes the specimen gains, it is true, in 

 elegance, but, in general, the isolated spicules 

 which are so important for the scientific deter- 

 mination of the species are lost. For the study 

 of the soft parts of the Hexactinellida, which were 



Fig. 1!>8. — Tccgeria pvlchra, n. gen. et sp. 

 a representative of the Euplectellidoe. 



