New Species of Sponges. 



67 



cipal longitudinal and transverse fibres. The regular quad- 

 rate ureas of the body-wall also mark it off from Plecfo- 

 derma and Phormosella, Hinde. (See Brit. Foss. Sponges 

 pt. i. pi. iii., figs. 1, 2 and pt. ii. p. 124-5, Pa!. Soc, 1886-7.) 

 How far it may resemble Dictyophyton* Hall, and the 

 other genera associated therewith by Prof. Hall [35th 

 Report of the State Museum (1884) p. 465. pis. 18-21], it is 

 impossible to state, for, so far as I am aware, the structural 

 features of this genus have never been sufficiently describ- 

 ed, and the characters assigned to the other genera are 

 mainly those of external form, which, as regards this 

 group of sponges, are hardly of generic importance. 



The structures of Cyathophycus, as shown in those speci- 

 mens, beais a great resemblance to that of the recent 

 genus, Holascus, Schulze, (Challenger Reports, Vol. xxi., p. 

 85) based on sponges dredgea from depths varying between 

 13Y5 and 2650 fathoms in the South Atlantic and in the 

 Southern Ocean, There is a striking similarity in the 

 structure of the sponge-wall in the fossil and in the original 

 specimens described by Schulze, now in the British Mu- 

 seum of Natural History. 



Cyathophycus Quebecensis, Dawson. (No. 3 of previous 

 paper.) 



One of the specimens thus named is the basal portion of 

 an apparently elongated tubular sponge, the ..all of which 

 consists of cruciform spicules disposed in longitudinal and 

 transverse fibres, as in the type of the genus. The speci- 

 men is too imperfect and the spicular mesh too broken up 

 to permit of minute discription. On other rock-fragments 

 are fibres or strands of straight elongated spicules, either 

 parallel with each other or irregularly scattered over the 



* If the spicular structure of Dictyophyton should prove similar to 

 that of Oyathophycm, this latter named will have to be suppressed 

 in favor of the former, which has the priority. Both these names, 

 applied under the supposition that the organisms were plants, are 

 alike unsuitable, and it might be advisable, as suggested by Prof. 

 Whitfield, to reinstate Conrad's original name, Hydnoceras. [In the 

 only species of the Dictyospongidae i vvhich I have seen struc- 

 ture, that named by Whitfield Uph^.ttenia Dawsoni (Am. J. 



