SPONGES OF BEAUFORT (N. C.) HARBOR AND VICINITY. 137 
ishard and woody. Color, dark brown at surface; canalar walls not so dark; parenchyma whitish gray. 
Large canals 6 to 7 millimeters in diameter, up to twice that size, extend in from both dermal and cloacal 
surfaces. 
A fragment of this specimen was examined microscopically. The tylostyles had a distinct but 
only slightly developed head; measured 414 to 468 w by 11 to 14 m; were in general slightly and evenly 
curved, but sometimes bent more or less abruptly. The spirasters were commonly ro to 12 pm long. 
In respect to the abundance of the spirasters at the dermal surface, the specimen (fragment) proved 
to be intermediate between the Beaufort and the Jamaican sponges. 
The vaselike habitus with differentiated incurrent and excurrent surfaces has 
not hitherto been described in Spirastrella. The nearest approach is made by the 
type specimens of Spirastrelia (Alcyonium) purpurea, collected by Peron and Lesueur 
in 1803 in Australian waters and first described by Lamarck in 1815. ‘Topsent, who 
in recent years has reexamined these specimens (1906a, p. 3), thinks that one, at any 
rate, possibly represents a marginal fragment of a vasiform sponge. The two faces 
are different. One, which Topsent suggests may be the outer surface, is imperforate 
and bears radial tuberosities, while the other bears orifices visible to the eye about 
1 millimeter apart. The interior of the sponge is porous but not cavernous. 
Vosmaer (1911) has shown that a great number of forms described from many 
parts of the world intergrade in respect to any of the points he has considered. He 
hence combines them all as one species, which he designates S. purpurea (Lamarck). 
It may be doubted if the name is well chosen; certainly not if Topsent’s interpretation 
is correct and Lamarck’s fragments belong to a vasiform sponge with differentiated 
faces. This would be very different from the remainder of those combined by Vosmaer, 
and a new name would thus be necessary for Vosmaer’s species. 
Certain gross anatomical points of resemblance between S. andrewsii and Poterion 
are obvious. These are the vasiform shape and the differentiation of pore and oscular 
surfaces. But the pore areas and afferent canal system of P. atlantica are quite differ- 
ent structures from the incurrent apertures and great canals of S. andrewsit, and the 
oscula and oscular canals of the two forms are likewise very different. The resemblance 
is only the gross likeness which results from the sponges independently acquiring the 
same shape of body and the same type of distribution of the incurrent and excurrent 
orifices. : 
While S. andrewsiz is a striking species in the matter of size, one species of the genus 
already is recorded that exceeds it. This is the great Hymeniacidon pulvinatus of 
Bowerbank (1872, p. 126), which Vosmaer (loc. cit.) merges into Spirastrella purpurea 
(tropus pyramidalis). This sponge, occurring at Calebert Quay near Belize (British 
Honduras), is a massive, sessile form reaching 8 feet in height. The oscula and pores 
are scattered over the surface. The sponge is cavernous with large canals. 
Position of the genus.—The spiraster of Spirastrella has generally been regarded 
as a modified aster, and the genus accordingly put in the Astromonaxonellida (Hadro- 
merina of Topsent). But Vosmaer (1909) has concluded that the spicules are spiral 
monaxous with spines, since the latter contain no axial canals, as do the actines of a 
true aster. Dendy (1916, p. 96), perhaps reasoning from this fact, transfers the Spira- 
strellide, and along with them the Clionidz and Suberitidae, to the Sigmatotetraxonida. 
Awaiting Dendy’s detailed reasons for the change, the families are retained in this paper 
in their old position. 
