104 Mr. II. J. Carter on a new Species o/'Aplysina 



I might here add too, as regards sponges hitherto considered 

 to have a skeleton possessed of simple, solid fibre only (that is, 

 "without core of any kind) , that I very much doubt if there be 

 many such, since, in the softest officinal sponge, to say nothing 

 of the coarser kind, it is hardly possible to pinch out the 

 minute portion which is required for microscopic examination 

 without finding in it a filament also possessed of an axis 

 containing fragments of spicules and grains of sand. It is 

 true that the solid fibre is greatly in excess of this, and that 

 the softest sponges have most of it ; but this does not 

 release us from the necessity of grouping these sponges among 

 the Hirciniadse, wherein the character of the fibre is to possess 

 an axis formed more or less of the fragments of spicules, minute 

 grains of sand, and other foreign objects of the like nature. 



While the Aplysince have as yet been chiefly found in and 

 about the Mediterranean Sea, the Luffarice appear to have come 

 almost exclusively from the West Indies and their neigh- 

 bouring seas. 



In L)r. Schmidt's work on the Sponges of the Adriatic 

 Sea, to which I have already referred, based on the exami- 

 nation of specimens which he himself dredged up, described 

 with the power of a professor of zoology, and illustrated with 

 great ability by skilful naturalists, two species of Ajjlysime 

 are mentioned, viz. A. aerophoha^ which is Nardo's name and 

 form, and A. carnosa, which is Dr. Schmidt's new species. 

 Good specimens of the former were sent to the British Museum 

 by Dr. Schmidt, where they now represent the type specimen 

 of this species ; and the same species would appear to exist in 

 the Gulf of Florida (Atlantisch. Spongienfauna, p. 30, pi. 3. 

 fig. 16) ; while De Fonbressin and Michelotti, as before stated, 

 give six species of Luffaria [pi^. et loc. cit.), of which there 

 is also an abundance of very fine specimens in the British 

 Museum. 



It is, however, with the former genus, and not with the 

 latter, that we are here chiefly concerned, as we have to add 

 a new locality to A. carnosa and a new species to the genus, 

 from specimens dredged up by W. Saville Kent, Esq., of the 

 British Museum, in Vigo Bay, while on board the yacht 

 ' Noma,' in 1870, and now handed over with the rest of his 

 valuable collection to the British Museum. 



To Mr. Kent, therefore, we are indebted for the new spe- 

 cies of Aplysina which I am about to describe under the 

 designation of " comeostellata,^^ on account of the skeleton 

 chiefly consisting of horny stellates ; and the specimens have 

 been so successfully preserved in spirit, that I shall not only 

 be able to describe the ova with which they happen to be 



