Bibliographical Notice. 219 
it is, in the absence of authentic examples, and there being 
some features in which the descriptions of the two species do 
not quite harmonize, I feel justified in retaining my opinion 
as to their difference. D. nit¢éda of Verrill, as judged by the 
Museum examples, it certainly is not. The latter is probably 
the same as the unnamed fragments I mentioned in my paper 
as being in the Museum collection. I have not as yet seen a 
second example of D. Brasseyi; but in Lady Brassey’s col- 
lection are several specimens of D. Allnutt’, some fronds 
being very large, much more so than is given by Mr. Tenison- 
Woods. 
I am, Gentlemen, 
Yours obediently, 
204 Regent Street, W. Bryce WRIGHT. 
Feb. 18, 1884. 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. 
fatalogue of the Fossil Sponges in the Geological Department of the 
British Museum (Natural History); with Descriptions of new and 
little-known Species. By Guorer Jennrnes Hrypz, Ph.D., F.G.S. 
4to. London: printed by order of the Trustees. 1883. 
Terex is certainly no group of organisms that has presented so 
many difficulties to naturalists as the Sponges. The very kingdom 
of nature to which they belonged was long a matter of dispute; 
indeed, not much more than thirty years ago so good a naturalist as 
Carl Vogt, after briefly discussing their peculiarities, decided that 
they were at least quite as much plants as animals, and showed that 
he thought they were less animals than plants by leaving them out 
of his ‘ Zoologische Briefe.’ Even since their recognition as members 
of the animal series they have been subjected to vicissitudes such as 
have fallen to the lot of no other group: after passing for a time 
as undoubted Protozoa, they were raised by Leuckart and Hiickel 
on embryological grounds to the rank of Metazoa, and finally ranked 
by Saville Kent as Flagellate Infusoria, while Balfour was inclined 
to regard them as forming a group in some respects intermediate 
between Protozoa and Metazoa. 
With organisms as to the absolute nature of which such divergent 
t\ opinions prevailed, with such complete uncertainty with regard even 
\ 
\to what constitutes the individual ‘“ persona,” it is no great matter of 
wonder that the views of zoologists upon their classification and as 
\ were irreconcilably diverse, and that for many years spongologists 
y were occupied chiefly with investigations which could only be re- 
Yt, 15* 
\ 
\\ 
) 
‘ the characters which ought to be employed to distinguish them 
