486 Dr. J. E. Gray on Dr. BowerbanJt^s Paper on Hyalonema. 



thus." It is Professor Max Schultze, MM. Milne-Edwards, 

 Haime, and Valenciennes (all zoologists of great eminence) who 

 regard the animal of Hyalonema as a, parasitic species of Cor- 

 ticifera or, as they call it, Palythoa, or of Zoanthus; so it is 

 these zoologists, and not I, that should have been warned; 

 for I have always regarded the animal of the Glass Rope as a 

 peculiar genus for the very reason Dr. Bowerbank assigns, and 

 called it Hyalonema, the name he quotes ! I can only consider 

 this, like the other charges in his paper, a proof of the haste 

 in which he must have penned his reply to my observations ; 

 and I am convinced that, when he has properly examined the 

 anatomy of the specimen, and considered the subject, he will 

 find that he cannot establish his theory against the unaninfous 

 opinion of such experienced zoologists. Indeed one cannot 

 understand how Dr. Bowerbank ever could have fallen into the 

 unaccountable zoological blunder of describing as an osculum of 

 a sponge the large well-developed zoanthoid polype which had, 

 before he published a word on the subject, been referred to its 

 proper group by the celebrated naturalists above named, while 

 its anatomy had been figured by Professor Brandt, unless it be 

 assumed that he is very imperfectly acquainted with the litera- 

 ture of the subject on which he writes — an assumption that 

 would explain many lacunse in his work on British Sponges, and 

 the fact of so many names in that work being followed by 

 '^ Bowerbank :" in some entire pages the name occurs as every 

 third word. 



I think, if Dr.^Bowerbank will read Senhor Bocage's paper 

 with care, he will find that he has misunderstood it, and that 

 Senhor Socage does mean by the thin end the one that in the 

 Japan specimen is inserted in the sponge ; otherwise I should 

 fear that Dr. Bowerbank lays himself open to the accusation 

 which he makes against Professor Owen in his description of 

 Euplectella. 



Whatever theory may be entertained about the rope-like 

 bundle of spicula which I consider the axis of the coral, there 

 can be no doubt that the bark on the axis is a zoophyte alHed 

 to Zoanthus. Dr. Bowerbank alone amongst naturalists denies 

 this fact : he considers that " the basal sponge, the spiral axis, 

 and its coriaceous envelope are really parts of one and the same 

 animal," and that animal a sponge. He should recollect that 

 this is not the first time he has made a mistake of the kind, 

 as when he described the case of the egg of a leech as a sponge. 

 I cannot but regard the "columnal cloacal system and its 

 oscula " in Hyalonema as the myth of a microscopist. 



Is Dr. Bowerbank certain that none of the Gorgoniadse secrete 

 silica ? Some French zoologists have stated that they do. 



