166 Dr. J. E. Gray on the Arrangement 
all horny matter, with scarcely any appreciable silica; but in 
a large collection of spicules from different Bae. the two 
forms pass into each other almost insensibly. I must consider 
that the Coralloid Sponges are sponges which have the sili- 
ceous spicules anchylosed together by siliceous matter; some 
of the fibrous sponges consist of siliceous spicules cemented 
together by horny matter, and others of horny matter only, 
without any imbedded spicules—the only difference between 
the two extremes being the abundance of silica in the first and 
the more or less entire absence of it in the last kind; so that it 
is a matter of little importance whether they are called spicules 
or fibres. 
Dr. Bowerbank’s considering the distinction of so much 
importance perhaps leads him into the following extraordinary 
observation :—‘‘In the solid siliceous fibres of Dactylocalyz, 
fig. 274, pl.15, and in the tubular siliceous fibres of Farrea occa 
(Bowerbank’s MS. fig. 277, pl. 15), and especially in the latter, 
we observe a very much closer approximation to the tubular 
form of the bones of the higher sans of animals” (B. 8. i. 
p- 28). Dr. Bowerbank has odd notions respecting the analo- 
gies between the parts of sponges and vertebrate animals : 
thus, in the characters of Geodia, he speaks of pores furnished 
with “ esophageal tubes” (B. 8. i. p. 167). | 
Dactylocalyx pumicea was well described by Mr. Stutchbury 
in the Proceedings of the Zool. Soc. for 1841, p. 86, from 
a specimen that had been sent from Barbadoes to the Bristol 
Museum. Mr. Stutchbury most kindly let me have half of 
the Bristol specimen which he described, which is now in the 
British Museum. Dr. Bowerbank repeatedly refers to this 
species, under Stutchbury’s. name, in his ‘ British Sponges’ 
(see pp. 204, 274, &c.). There is a similar sponge in the 
Museum of the Jardin des Plantes, where it is called “‘ [phi- 
teon panicea (Dactylocalyx, Stutchbury),” a gemmule of which 
is represented by fig.341 of Dr. Bowerbank’s ‘ British Sponges.’ 
Some years ago I obtained from the late Mr. Thomas Ingall 
a beautiful small specimen of this sponge, which he had re- 
ceived from St. Vincent, in the West Indies, where, I believe, 
it was obtained by Mr. Lansdown Guilding. Mr. Ingall in- 
formed me that he bought it with a number of sponges in a 
very dirty condition at the sale of Mr. Guilding’s specimens 
in King Street, Covent Garden. Dr. Bowerbank, at p. 259 
of his first volume of ‘ British Sponges,’ observes, “ [The 
spinulo-quadrifureate hexradiate stellate spicules] occur abun- 
dantly in a beautiful and unique specimen of a cup-shaped 
siliceo-fibrous sponge formerly in the cabinet of my friend 
Mr. Thomas Ingall, now in the British Museum.” This spe- 
