]\Ir. H. J. Carter on the SarcohexactinelUd Sponges. 285 



offer some remarks in my next paper, which will be on one of 

 the specimens dredged up on board H.M.S. ' Porcupine ; ' and 

 I think that I may then be able to show the transition of 

 Schmidt's " Corallistes " into his genus Pachastrella (Bower- 

 bank's Hymeniacidoii Bucklandi), thence into Sfelletta, and 

 finally into Geodia, — thus confirming their separation from the 

 vitreous Hexactinellidte established by Schmidt, who has de- 

 scribed and figured them under the family name of" Lithistidoe," 

 in his ' Grundziige einer Spongienfauna des atlantischen 

 Gebietes.' 



1 have stated above that the sarcode which chiefly holds the 

 spicules of a sponge together, especially in its dried state, has 

 in this specimen of Lcdmria been destroyed — and also that 

 fragments of the long spicules of another sponge have been 

 introduced into Laharia for the purpose of deception, whereby 

 it had become difficult to establish the position of the "vents." 



Although, however, Laharia hemispha'rica has thus been 

 much injured and disfigured, sufficient has been stated to show 

 that enough still remains to establish its general form and chief 

 specific characters with certainty. It is not a perfect specimen, 

 from two causes : viz., first of all, the sarcode, as is commonly 

 the case with sponges that have been allowed to get damp 

 (and this is almost inevitable where the salt has not in the first 

 instance been taken out of them by soaking in fresh water before 

 they are finally dried), has been destroyed (by Ifucoridea'^-pro- 

 bably) , which has thus deprived the spicules generally of their 

 chief support ; and, secondly, the native who had the specimen 

 for sale, finding that it was thus falling to pieces, and in order 

 to make the most of it, took a bunch of the long spicules of 

 Meyerina claviformis (for they are easily recognized), and 

 making a tassel of them, four and a half inches long, by binding 

 their upper ends together into a conical form with the fibre of 

 some plant about the size of coarse thread, pushed this into the 

 centre of the basal tuft of Laharia^ and so into the body of the 

 sponge, securing it there by thrusting in shorter fragments 

 from the same source in groups all round the sides, wliich gave 

 the sponge a cat-whiskered appearance, with a very large basal 

 tuft. 



It was not possible to detect this fraud at first, as the end of 

 the tassel was so completely concealed in the body of Laharia, 

 and covered by its own natural basal tuft (which, as above 

 stated, is only two inches in length), while the cat-whisker-like 

 groups at the sides also appeared so natural that minute exami- 

 nation and an acquaintance with the intimate structure of 

 such sponges alone led to detection — rendered still more per- 

 plexing by the absence of the sarcode in the sponge generally, 



