SPONGES OF BEAUFORT (N. C.) HARBOR AND VICINITY. 171 
almost any habitus; in which the skeleton is very variable and imperfectly known; and 
in which the interconular areas vary greatly in size, from 2 to 10 millimeters in diameter; 
the species remaining recognizable in spite of its variability. Cotes and Yarrow (1878) 
record under this name a specimen collected in the Beaufort region. 
Schriidt (1870, p. 30) had also before him West Indian specimens which he iden- 
tified as H. campana, but he frankly confesses that the wealth of Hircinia “forms” 
in the West Indian waters is so great that he can not divide them into species. This 
entanglement of “‘forms” still waits for its satisfactory analysis. Familiarity with 
considerable numbers of the living sponges in several localities and some breeding 
experiments are doubtless necessary for real success. 
Lendenfeld (loc. cit., p. 569) classes Spongia campana as a Sarcotragus (= Hircinias 
with distinctly fascicular main fibers), and to this species assigns the vase shaped and 
flabellate sponges from the West Indies and Florida named Polytherses campana by 
Duchassaing and Michelotti (loc. cit.), Hircinia campana by Schmidt (loc. cit.), H. 
campana varieties typica and fixa by Hyatt (loc. cit.). 
Discussion of the genus.—Lendenfeld in defining Hircinia (loc. cit., p. 545) lays 
stress, justly, we think, not only on the presence of filaments but on the way in which 
the connectives attach to the main fibers. He says: “‘The fascicular nature of the 
connecting fibers and their mode of attachment to the main fibers by numerous diverg- 
ing roots, which extend in one plane, distinguish most species of Hircinia sufficiently 
from Stelospongia and from all other genera.” He goes on to say that there are forms 
without this peculiarity, but these are plainly very close to the sponges with the pecu- 
liarity. Possibly this reasoning justifies Lendenfeld’s inclusion under Hircinia of forms 
with dendritic fibers instead of a reticulate skeleton, such as Cacospongia collectrix 
Polejeff and Oligoceras conulosum Ridley. 
The fascicular main fibers of Hircinia deserve a few words. They are structures 
that are somewhat vaguely treated in the literature and probably are not always under- 
stood in the same sense. The fact that the connectives are united to simple main 
fibers by diverging roots, which may extend in one plane along the fiber for a consider- 
able distance, leads to the formation of a type of fascicular fiber different from that 
which is characteristic of Stelospongia (ante under description of this species). An 
examination of the literature indicates that it is widespread among the species now 
recorded under Hircinia. This type of fascicular fiber owes its existence, we believe, 
(1) to the extension of roots along the main fiber such that roots of successive connectives 
join one another, and (2) to the fact that several sets of roots which surround the main 
fiber at about one level but on different sides combine to form a close-meshed reticulum 
through the axis of which runs the original main (simple) fiber. ‘The fascicular fibers 
appear to have this character in H. favosa and H. fetida (Lendenfeld, loc. cit., pp. 571, 
577), although Lendenfeld regards the fascicular fibers of this subgenus (Sarcotragus) 
as composed of several individual fibers joined at frequent intervals to one another 
(loc. cit., p. 533); that is, as compound fibers. But in H. javosa the sand grains are 
restricted to the most axial fiber of the fascicle, the whole structure appearing to consist 
of an axial fiber “surrounded by garlands of slender fibers” (loc. cit.). The structure 
appears to be the same in H. jatida. Again, in describing the connectives of several 
species of subgenus Sarcotragus, Lendenfeld (p. 534) says the roots of the connectives 
“appear as continuations of the fibers which form the garlands in the main fascicles.” 
