293 Dr. J. E. Gray on the "Glass-Rope" Hyaloneraa. 



The only pretence of a reason that Dr. Bowerbank gives for 

 considering "the basal sponge ^^ an "undoubted part of the 

 animal " is^ that " the sponge in the specimens that I described 

 and the one attached to the specimen at Bristol are identical in 

 structure," — as if it were not to be expected that the sponge 

 from Japan to which the various specimens of the Japan coral 

 are attached would most probably be of the same species. (See 

 vol. i. p. 196.) 



On referring to the explanation of the plates in the first vo- 

 lume, I see my suspicions are verified. Dr. Bowerbank observes, 

 " Figure 371, plate 35, represents a portion of the great cloacal 

 column, exhibiting part of the spiral axial fasciculus surrounded 

 by the remains of the dermal (!) coat with numerous oscula 

 projecting from its surface. Copied from the ' Zoological Pro- 

 ceedings' for 1857" (vol. i. 197). 



Unfortunately Dr. Bowerbank does not seem to have con- 

 sidered it necessary to examine the specimens, but simply copies 

 the plate, or to examine other genera of corals ; or he would have 

 found that what he calls oscula are, as I called them in the de- 

 scription he quotes, polype-cells containing polypes having ten- 

 tacles and all the internal organization, including a distinctly 

 plicated stomach, exactly like the zoanthoid polype named Poly- 

 thoa or Corticaria. Other naturalitsts, as Dr. Max Schultze, who 

 have considered the axis as belonging to the sponge, have 

 avoided this extraordinary error, and have regarded "the dermal 

 coat with oscula" of Dr. Bowerbank as a parasitic Polythoa. 



Dr. Bowerbank also observes, "There is a close approximate 

 alliance to the forms of the cloacal appendages of Hyalonema in 

 the corresponding organs of the British genus Ciocalypta, Bower- 

 bank" (vol. i. p. 197). If this comparison is correct, possibly 

 Ciocalypta is not a sponge; and the figure (vol. i. t. 30. f. 360 

 & 361) renders it doubtful. But all the descriptions of this 

 work are so indistinct and crowded with technicalities peculiar 

 to the author, that they are very difficult to understand, and 

 render a new examination of the species and a new work on the 

 subject requisite. 



I am not aware that any reason has been assigned for the 

 theory above referred to, unless the enigmatical description of 

 the genus above quoted of Dr. Bowerbank can be considered 

 one ; and I can only suppose that it arose in M. Valenciennes's 

 mind from the fact of the spicula being siliceous and in che- 

 mical composition like the spicula of the sponge to which some 

 of the Japanese specimens are attached. 



Professor Max Schultze enters into a long description of the 

 spicula of the sponge, and figures several of them ; but I cannot 

 see what bearing that has on the subject; for he does not 



