316 Dr. J. E. Gray on a New-Zealand Wliale. 



natural groups. The isolated ones, whicli contained the indigo, 

 were more or less globular, from 1 to 1| 6000th of an inch 

 in diameter ; provided with a short, pointed beak supporting 

 a single cilium, about five times the diameter in length, and 

 throwing out and retracting ray -like pseudopodia from their 

 circumference, which was thus ever changing its form. 



The "groups " consisted of an aggTegation of such spongo- 

 zoa charged with the indigo, and altogether formed round or 

 elliptical dark blue masses, with a hollow interior and a cir- 

 cumference not only fringed with cilia, which were motionless, 

 but also with a number of shorter ray-like pseudopodia. 



The interiors appeared to be in direct communication with the 

 branched system of excretory canals ; but how the particles of 

 indigo get from the pores to the canals I am ignorant. Possibly 

 the pores and the canals may also be in direct communication, 

 and cilia not only take the particles of food into the spongozoa, 

 but, by reverse action, bring out the undigested parts by the 

 same course. 



Thus, however, in Halisarca Dujardimi the same kind of 

 spongozoa exist as probably in all the other sponges, aggre- 

 gated into similar gi'oups, communicating respectively with 

 the excretory system of canals. 



I need hardly add that Halisarca Dujardinii is void of 

 spicules, as Dujardin and Johnston have described it ('Annals,' 

 loc. cit.), and not the spiculiferous sponge described by Dr. 

 Bowerbank under this name. It is, minus the spicules, of 

 the same structure as the Gummineje ; and therefore all these 

 gelatinous sponges may be assumed to possess the same kind 

 of spongozoa {vide 'Annals,' loc, ct't.). 



XLIII. — On a New-Zealand Whale (Physalus antarcticus, 

 Button), with Notes. By Dr. J. E. Gray, F.R.S. &c. 



[Plate XVI.] 



Prof. F. W. Hutton, keeper of the Otago Museum, Dunedin, 

 New Zealand, has sent the skeleton of a whale taken off 

 Otago Head in October, 1873. He has also sent a slight ac- 

 count accompanied by a drawing of the whale, and the measure- 

 ments of it when fresh, as follows : — 



" AVhale dark grey above, shading off gradually into 

 yellowish white below. Baleen yellow with a narrow black 

 margin. 



