102 Mr. H. J. Carter on a new Species (?/'Aplysina 



other sponges are white as the mud settles down upon them, 

 but these are always black." (Hist. An., trans, by K. 

 Cresswell, Bk. V. chap, xiv., Arist. V. xvi. 10.) 



How far Aristotle meant the sponges now called '■'■A'ply- 

 sincBy^ or whether he included others among them under the 

 general name of '"'' Aiilysia^'' it would be waste of time to 

 discuss. Suffice it, therefore, to state that the description comes 

 very near to the Ajplysince of the Adriatic Sea at the present 

 day, and that the name has thus been well chosen for such 

 sponges. 



On referring to Schmidt's invaluable work on the Sponges 

 of the Adriatic Sea (1862, p. 25), we may there find that 

 Nardo, in 1834 ('Isis'), first adopted the term ^^ Aply since'''' 

 (originally named hjh.im.^^Aplysice'''') for certain sponges, one 

 of which he called A. aerojyhoha^ and that Schmidt, in 1862, 

 elucidated this species, in the publication to which I have just 

 alluded, both by description and illustration — that is to say, 

 that he added the sine qua non for the identification of Aply- 

 sina, viz. the character of the fibre of which the skeleton is 

 composed. So far, then, Schmidt has established this genus. 



Now as regards that of Luffaria, which Schmidt has also 

 accepted (Atlantisch. Spongienfauna, p. 30, 1870) : — 



In 1845 (Annals, vol. xvi. p. 403) Dr. Bowerbank de- 

 scribed a sponge from the West Indies, which had been pre- 

 sented to him by Dr. Veronge, as follows : " This specimen 

 is in the form of a cluster of cylindrical tubes about twelve 

 inches in height and two in diameter, the thickness of the 

 tube being about half an inch" — the skeleton of which is 

 stated at the commencement of the description to be " com- 

 posed of a network of keratose fibres inosculating in every 

 direction without order. Fibre cylindrical, continuously fistular, 

 without spicula. Cavity of the fibre simple." 



No reference is made by Dr. Bowerbank to any previous 

 authority — although one of the highest, viz. Esper, had figm-ed 

 this* sponge in three plates successively in 1794 (Pflanzen- 

 thiere, tab. xx,, xxi., and xxi. a), as confirmed by Dr. Ehlers 

 in 1870 in his Synonymy of the Esperian Collection at the 

 Museum of the University of Erlangen, wherein he identifies 

 Esper's Spongiafistularis (that is, the one figured in the above 

 mentioned plates) with the Luff aria fistular is of De Fonbressin 

 and Michelotti, given in their descriptions and illustrations of 

 the sponges of the Caribbean Sea (Natuurk. Verb. Holland. 

 Maat. Wet. te Haarlem, vol. xxi. 1864) ; the latter authors 

 having already, in their description and figure of this species 

 {pp. elf. p. 60, pi. 10. fig. 2), come to the same conclusion. 



Dr. Bowerbank, it is true, named the species " Verongia^'' 



