Mr. T. Higgin on some Caribbean Sponges. 291 



XXIV. — Description of some Sponges obtained during a Cruise 

 of the Steam- Yacht 'Argo^ in the Caribbean and neigh- 

 bouring Seas. By Thomas Higgin, F.L.S. 



[Plate XIV.] 



Last winter Mr. Reginald Cholmondeley, of Condover Hall, 

 Shropshire, chartered the ' Argo,' a new steam-yacht of over 

 700 tons burthen, for a voyage to the West Indies, with the 

 primary object of increasing his already fine collection of 

 birds ; but desiring to extend the advantages of the trip to 

 the Liverpool Museum, he courteously invited the Committee 

 to name a gentleman to accompany him as his guest on behalf 

 of that institution ; and the Rev. H. 11. Higgins of Rainhill, 

 so well known as an enthusiastic and devoted worker for and 

 supporter of the Museum from its foundation, was selected 

 for this complimentary and important work. The yacht left 

 the Mersey early in January 1876, and returned in May 

 following, having visited most of the West-India Islands, the 

 coast of Central America, the southern shore of the Gulf of 

 Mexico, Florida, and the Bahamas. 



The sponges now described and figured form part of the 

 valuable collection brought home by Mr. Higgins ; and it is a 

 matter of great satisfaction that in one of them, perhaps the 

 most beautiful in form, an opportunity is afforded of naming 

 it after him generically and thus connecting his name perma- 

 nently with the expedition and its results, while it may 

 express in a slight degree our sense of the obligations under 

 which he has placed us by so many years of patient work at 

 the Museum, and in the interests of natural history and 

 science generally during his long residence in the neighbour- 

 hood of Liverpool. I shall commence, then, with the species 

 Higginsia coralloides, which may be considered as typical of 

 the genus Higginsia. 



Higginsia coralloides, n. g. et sp. (PI. XIV. figs. 1-5.) 



General form flabellate, consisting of lobate compressed 

 branches of irregular and luxuriant growth, united clathrously 

 or continuously, rising from a short dense stem ; surface 

 deeply furrowed in a vertical direction, the ridges between the 

 furrows being narrow and in the young growths serrated with 

 tooth-like projections, passing in the older portions into rounded 

 or tubercled prominences, thus giving the sponge (which 

 now in its dried state is white) its peculiarly coral-like ap- 

 pearance. 



The structure is a spiculiferous network of lozenge-shaped 



