Indian Deep-sea Dredging. 9 



Phylum PORIFERA. 

 Class SILICOSPONGIJE. 



Numerous specimens of sponges, belonging to seven genera 

 and eight species, were obtained during the season in deep 

 sea. Seven species are Hexactinellid, and one is a siliceous 

 sponge with thickly felted monaxial spicules. 



On muddy bottoms between 100 and 1500 fathoms in the 

 northern part of the Bay of Bengal not one sponge was found. 

 But off the west coast of the Andamans, from a clean bottom 

 of coral-sand in 240 to 220 fathoms, the tangles came up 

 incrusted with Farrea (two species) and with a few specimens 

 of EvplecteUa (one species), Hyahnema (one species), and 

 two other species of Hexactinellid sponges. 



Again, in 1000 fathoms in the Laccadive Sea numerous 

 sponges were taken in the trawl, including Euplectel/a, Hya- 

 hnema^ and over twenty specimens of a firm, compact, globu- 

 lar species, of which the skeleton is formed by a thick felt of 

 monaxial siliceous spicules. These last either were adherent 

 to dead coralla of Caryophyllia communis or had grown round 

 the anchor-stalks of dead Hyahnema. 



The anchor-stalks of all our living specimens of Hyahnema 

 were thickly incrusted with colonies of an Epizoanthus. 



SubgradeB. CCELOMATA. 



Phylum VERTEBRATA. 



Class PISCES. 



The bathybial fishes collected during the season number 

 thirty-five species, of which all but ten are new to science. 

 As the Avhole of these species have been already described 

 or noticed in this Magazine ('Annals/ Sept. & Oct. 1890), 

 it will be sufficient now to give merely a list of them. 



"We divide them into (1) true bathybial forms, and (2) 

 forms which are locally bathybial in the surface-heated seas 

 of India. 



(1) The true bathybial fishes are twenty- five species ; among 

 them are the following apparently new types : — 



(i.) Batlnjseriola ('Annals,' Sept. 1890, p. 202).— A 

 Carangid with the general aspect of Cubiceps. 



(ii.) Ponerodon (I c. p. 203). — A Trachinid which might 

 be taken for the Gadoid Chiasmodus, but that, besides having 

 large pseudobranchias and an armed preopercle and wanting 

 an air-bladder, it has the first ray of the ventral, the first and 

 second (small) rays of the anal, and all the rays of the first 

 dorsal fin in the form of well-characterized non-articulated 



