and Acapulco Sponges. 267 



of this opportunity to couple with these descriptions general 

 and chnssificatorj remarks, aided by descriptions and references 

 to species in tlie British Museum and elsewhere which will 

 best illustrate the subject, thus endeavouring to heap up still 

 more matter for some one to embody in a ' Manual of the Spon- 

 gida/ based, if he should think fit, on my " Notes Introduc- 

 tory to the Study and Classification of the Spongida " 

 ('Annals,' 1875, vol. xvi. p. 1, &c.), since it is useless for 

 me to commence a work of this kind now, which I can never ' 

 expect to complete. Had I had twenty years ago the amount 

 of knowledge of the Spongida which the opportunities and 

 time of the last twenty have given me, I might have done 

 this myself, and more ; but as it is, it must be left to the next 

 generation. 



I had hoped to find a " key " in the collection of sponges 

 from the West Indies to those described and illustrated 

 in the ' Spongiaires de la Mer Caraibe,' published in 1864 

 by MM. P. Duchassaing de Fonbressin et Giovanni Mi- 

 chelotti (Natuurk. Verb. Holland. Maat. te Haarlem, vol. xxi. 

 4to, with twenty-five coloured plates) ; but that hope has not 

 been realized, since the work is so full of errors, typographical 

 and others, the descriptions so incomplete, and the represen- 

 tations so coarse, that I have hardly ever referred to it 

 without vexation, still more increased by the evidence that 

 its otherwise rich contents must thus, for the most part, for 

 ever remain unavailable, just as many of the illustrations of 

 the Spongida in Savigny's ' Zoology of Egypt,' Avhich, 

 although so exquisite that one can almost see in them the 

 objects themselves, are, for want of accompanying descriptions, 

 rendered utterly useless. 



For instance, iij the- ' Spongiaires de la Mer Caraibe ' we 

 have the generic term ^^Thalj/sias^^ spelt in four different 

 ways, viz. as ^^Tali/sias^^ at p. 24, '"'' Hcdijsios'''' at p. 76, 

 '^27ialmas " at p. 82, ^''Tlialijsias'''' at p. 84; and after all, in 

 Dr. de Fonbressin's pamphlet of 1870, entitled a ' lievue des 

 Zoophytes et des Spongiaires des Antilles' (where we in vain 

 look for an apologetic explanation of the unsatisfactory way 

 in which their ' Memoire ' on the Spongida was published) 

 the same term is spelt " I'/'a/^/.s/o.s- " (j). ^-38)* ; while in no 

 instance, beyond the term " aciniforni," is the spicule either 

 delineated or described, although the authors, in their historical 

 sketch at the commencement of the memoir (p. 11), manifest 



* Hereafter the two works of de Fonbressin and ^liclielotti above 

 mentioned will be rel'erred to under tlie abbreviations of " de 1''. et M." 

 and " Revue " respectively. 



