84 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



On the Generic Name Alcyoncellum, and in reply to Dr. Gray's " Ob- 

 servations on Sponges and on their Arrangement and Nomenclature? 

 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' March 1868. By Dr. 

 J. S. Bowerbank, F.B.S., F.Z.S., &c. 

 I qtjite agree with Dr. Gray that there is considerable confusion 

 in the early descriptions of Alcyoncellum as a genus. Messrs. Quoy 

 and Gaimard, although they copy De Blainville's description of the 

 calcareous specimen, apparently in a very careless manner, evidently 

 had their own siliceous one in their minds as the type of the genus, 

 the heading to which is Alcyoncellum speciosum, nob. ; and if we ac- 

 cept their specimen as the type of their Alcyoncellum, there is no 

 reason why it should not maintain its position. On the contrary, 

 there are very cogent reasons why the calcareous type of the ' Ma- 

 nuel d'Actinologie ' should not be accepted as the type of the genus 

 Alcyoncellum. On the first occasion of my referring to pi. 92. fig. 5, 

 I concluded that the specimen represented was in reality a Grantia, 

 from the central cloacal cavity, its radiating cells, and its triradiate 

 calcareous spicula ; but I did not urge these points at that time, as 

 there did not then appear any likelihood of referring to sponges 

 which could be mutually agreed upon as satisfactory specimens of 

 De Blainville's calcareous type of the genus. This difficulty has 

 been overcome. On the occasion of my last visit to the British 

 Museum, Dr. Gray showed me a box containing a considerable quan- 

 tity of what he termed Alcyoncellum gelatinosum ; and subsequently, 

 on my writing to him, he kindly sent me a small specimen of the 

 sponge, a portion of which I immediately mounted in Canada balsam 

 and found it to be identical in structure with similar branched cal- 

 careous sponges that I obtained many years since from the mouth 

 of the Murray Biver, Australia, and of which I had mounted por- 

 tions shortly after I had received them. I find the sponge regis- 

 tered thus : — " Grantia virgultosa, Bowk. MS. From Fremantle, 

 Australia, by Mr. G. Clifton, and also from Murray Biver, by Bay." 

 1856. On comparing the specimens mounted from the sponges from 

 the above localities with those from Dr. Gray's specimen, they ap- 

 pear in every respect identical, and they agree perfectly with the 

 figures in plate 92. fig. 5 in the ' Manuel d'Actinologie.' Having thus 

 determined this important preliminary part of the question, let us 

 now see what pretensions the calcareous type of the genus has to 

 maintain its position in the scientific arrangement of the Spongiada?. 

 The genus Grantia was published in Fleming's ' British Animals,' 

 p. 524, in the year 1828. 



The ' Manuel d'Actinologie ' bears the date, on the titlepage, of 

 1834 ; and there is a notice, in p. viii of the introduction, stating that 

 its production extended through the time between the years 1830 

 and 1834. The article " Zoophyte," it is stated by Dr. Gray, was 

 " published in the ' Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles,' vol. ix., 

 and bears date 1830." We have therefore two years precedence of 



