known Species q/' Spongilla. 85 



No attempt to classify the freshwater sponges had been 

 made up to the publication of the late Dr. J. E. Graj's " Notes " 

 in 1867 (No. 22, p. 491), when my dear old friend (alas ! now 

 only dear to memory) made them the seventh order in his 

 " proposed " arrangement of the Spongida generally, under the 

 terms " Potamospongia," family " ISpongilladaj," with the 

 following genera, viz.: — 1. Ephydatia\ 2. Dosilia] 3. Me- 

 tania; 4. Acalle ] 5. Drulia] 6. Eunapius ; and 7. Spongilla\ 

 adding Dr. Bowerbank's marine species Diplodemia as an 

 eighth genus — an incongruity arising from the misconception 

 of Dr. Bowerbank to which I have already alluded. If 

 Dr. Gray's "Notes" had been based on direct knowledge of 

 the species of Spongilla themselves, and not on Dr. Bower- 

 bank's '' Monograph " (No. 20), it might have been unneces- 

 sary now to propose a different arrangement. It is enough to 

 state of this "Monograph " that Dr. Bowerbank therein calls 

 the statoblasts " ovaries," and in speaking of them in Spon- 

 gilla gregaria (No. 20, p. 15) thus expresses himself — " The 

 gregarious habit of these ovaries," &c. — to show the fallacies 

 that might arise from such loose phraseology. But setting 

 aside this and the like (for there is much to redeem it) , I have 

 had before me, in addition to the publications under reference, 

 the actual specimens, while going through the late Dr. Bower- 

 bank's collections for the British Museum (where they now 

 are) ; and it has been from examination of these type speci- 

 mens, together with my own from the island of Bombay, 

 which were described, illustrated, and published long before 

 Dr, Bowerbank's " Monograph of the Spongillid^," that I 

 have been induced to propose the following classification. 



As may have been observed, in my " Notes introductory to 

 the Study and Classification of the iSpongida," in 1875 (No. 

 27), I found it necessary to make the freshwater sponges the 

 fifth family of my sixth order of the Spongida generally, 

 under the name of " Potamospongida," with a single group, at 

 present named " Spongillina." Hence so far they will stand 

 thus : — 



Class SPONGIDA. 



Order VI. HOLORHAPHIDOTA. 



Char, Possessing a skeleton whose fibre is entirely com- 

 posed of proper spicules bound together by a minimum of 

 sarcode. Form of spicule variable. 



