8 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 9I 



with only about a dozen rays, reach about 30 /a in greatest diameter. 

 The smaller, with about twice as many rays, are only about 7 /a in 

 greatest diameter. There are also microrhabds i />(. by 37 fx, which 

 may possibly be faintly microspined. 



The other species of the genus Erylus that seems to be the closest 

 to the new species alleni is E. proximus Dendy (1916, p. 258), from 

 the Indian Ocean. This has the diactinal spicules frequently modified 

 to strongyles or oxeas and has only one type of euasters, which have 

 strongylote ends, instead of the oxeote ends found in alleni. 



Named for Dr. E. J. Allen, director of the Marine Biological 

 Association of Great Britain, at Plymouth, England. 



Family TETHYIDAE Gray 

 TETHYCORDYLA, n. gen. 



This group is here established for a sponge with spicules much 

 like those of the genus Tethya except that the microscleres do not 

 have the large conspicuous centrum ; there is also a symmetrical stipi- 

 tate external form. 



Genotype. — Tcthycordyla thyris, new species. 



TETHYCORDYLA THYRIS, n. sp. 



Holotype.—U.S.^.yi. no. 22368. 



Three specimens were collected at station 99, latitude i8°39'30" N., 

 longitude 64°56'oo" W. to latitude i8°4o' N., longitude 64°5i'W., 

 March 3, 1933, 180 to 200 fathoms. 



These specimens consist each of an almost perfectly spherical mass, 

 6 mm in diameter, on a stalk that is about i mm in diameter by 12 to 

 20 mm long. Around the periphery of the spherical portion, that is, 

 in a position that would be equatorial were the stalk regarded as polar, 

 occurs a series of three or four circular marks. Each circle is i mm in 

 greatest diameter ; the mark is a groove about 500 jx deep and wide ; 

 the central disk is level with the general surface of the sponge. Their 

 exact nature is not here interpreted. The only apparently proper 

 openings are abundant small ones, probably pores, each about 15/1 

 in diameter and each about 50 ix from its neighbor. The color is pale 

 drab as preserved in alcohol, and the consistency is cartilaginous. The 

 surface is covered with an exceedingly low hispidation and, further- 

 more, is in a pattern slightly resembling that of small plates, some 

 800 jx in diameter. The megascleres are 10 ^u, to 35 /* in diameter, and 

 are usually several millimeters long. They are in many cases fusiform 

 strongyles, but frequently unequally ended, so that the shape approxi- 



