dredged up J-rom Bass's Straits. 373 



in fig. 2, d ; ultimately passing into a four-armed, lithistid 

 spicule, whose branches, becoming subdivided towards the 

 extremities, end in filigree expansions (fig. 2, e), which, in 

 the deeper and fully developed structure, interlock with their 

 neighbours by a few straggling subround tubercles (fig. 2,f). 

 Flesh-spicule short, thick, sceptrelliform, coarsely spined 

 round the centre and at each of the ends (fig. 2, g, h) ; ex- 

 tremely abundant throughout, but especially on the surface. 

 Size of specimen about j inch in all ways. 



Hab. Marine. On a Melobesian nodule. 



Loc. Gulf of Manaar. 



Obs. The specimen of this species had become overgrown 

 with a layer of Melobesia, and would have remained thus 

 concealed but for an accidental fracture, which, passing through, 

 caused it to separate into two portions, one of which, having 

 been boiled in nitric acid, revealed the character of its spicu- 

 lation all but the circular form of the disk (fig. 2, a), whose 

 existence, in description and delineation, is thus inferred. The 

 specimen is not only small but imperfectly developed ; so that 

 I am not quite certain that fig. 2, /, represents the ultimate 

 development of the filigree — that is, as it would be in the 

 deeper structure. 



On the same small nulliporiform nodule, which is not more 

 than an inch in diameter, there is a portion of Discodermia 

 asjoera^ which presents a similar yellow colour, one of Coral- 

 listes verrucosa overgrown by Hymerhaphia eruca, Garjpenteria 

 utricularisj Botalia sjticulotestaj Polytrema miniaceum^ &c., 

 showing how many different organisms may exist on one 

 small Melobesian nodule. 



Specimens from Bass'' s Straits^ South Australia. 



Carnosa. 

 HaUsarca bassangustiarum^ n. sp. (provisional). 



Among the " dredgings " from Bass's Straits are two more 

 or less thin, light, corrugated, even-margined, subcircular 

 specimens about an inch in diameter each, one of which is 

 dark purple, almost black, and the other brown in colour. 

 Both are charged with globular bodies like cells, about 3| 

 6000ths inch in diameter ; but while these are indistinct in one 

 of them, they are well-defined, spheroidal, and capsular in the 

 other. How far these specimens may have been brought to 

 this state by exposure in the waves and on a hot dry beach I 

 cannot say ; but to expect HaUsarca after such exposure to 

 Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 5. Vol. vii. 28 



