and Nomenclature of Sponges. 169 
come into use; for if the author is too idle to describe them 
when he names them, and therefore defers doing so, it is very 
likely that he will never have the time or the inclination to 
do it. The insertion of these MS. names is so easy that the 
writer may give names to specimens without sufficient exami- 
nation for ascertaining if they are distinct. Dr. Bowerbank 
has fallen into this error repeatedly, as I have pointed out in 
this paper. In the first two pages of the explanation of the 
: a vol. i. pp. 229, 230, Halichondria coccinea, Bowerbank, 
. Alderi, Bowerb., H. crustula, Bowerb., and H. variantia, 
Bowerb., are each mentioned. I do not find any of them de- 
scribed. They are probably British species to which other 
names have been given. The last may be Hymeniacidon va- 
riantia, Bowerb. Brit. Spong. fig. 174; but no reference is 
made to the figure or the name. . 
Dr. Bowerbank, because he has found that the Sponge at- 
tached to a single specimen of Hyalonema lusitanicum, out of 
twelve that have been obtained belonging to the genus Car- 
teria, has the same spicules as the Sponge attached to the 
Japanese Hyalonema, concludes that the two species are only 
one, and blames me for having formed them into two genera. 
He has entirely overlooked the fact that the barks of the 
Portuguese and Japanese species are of very different texture, 
that the animals when contracted are of very different form 
(the one circular and the other oval), and that they have a 
different number of tentacles, in one placed in a double, in the 
other in a single row. Now, whether the polype forming the 
bark is a part of the coral or a parasite is a matter that may 
be open to discussion; but the difference in the structures of 
the polypes is sufficient to distinguish them from each other 
as species or genera. 
_ But it is not astonishing that Dr. Bowerbank should over- 
look such differences;. for he seems to have the. faculty of 
seeing what he desires, and of not seeing what he does not 
wish to see. ‘Thus, for example, he persists in denying the 
existence of the tentacles and cnidia in the polypes of the 
“a Hyalonema, though they have been figured by Brandt, 
hultze, and Bocage, and have been seen by hundreds of 
persons at the late soirée. of the Microscopic Society, where 
they were exhibited by Mr. Lee, Mr. Steward, and several 
other microscopists. 
I am not convinced of the identity of the Sponge found at- 
tached to the Japanese and Portuguese specimens of Hyalo- 
nema. Professor Bocage sent me a fragment of the Sponge 
attached to the Portuguese Hyalonema. I examined it very 
carefully, and could only find needle-like spicules, without 
