so-called Family Teiclionidaj. 51 



aiTived at his vesnlts quite independently of mj work, and. 

 refuses to recognize that I have any chxini to priority in the 

 matter. 



He bases his defence upon a preliminary communication 

 entitled " Das System der Kalkschwamme," which he informs 

 ns that he read before the Vienna Academy on the 8th of 

 January 1891, and which he accuses me of wilfully ignoring, 

 although, as a matter of fact, I have never seen the paper in 

 question up to the present moment. 



My principal work on the " Teichonidaj " was published in 

 January 1891, though written in Australia many months 

 previously ; hence, of course, it is possible that Dr. von Lcn- 

 denfeld may not have seen it before he wrote his preliminary 

 account, though that can be no excuse for not referring to it 

 m his complete work (' Die Spongien der Adria '), which is 

 not even dated till April 1891, and not published till the 

 following December. 



It is evident from Dr. von Lendenfeld's writin2;s that he 

 has never personally studied the group of sponges whose true 

 nature he claims to have independently arrived at, and hence 

 to an outsider it is difficult to see what could have induced 

 him so suddenly to abandon the family " Teichonidce " and 

 adopt my views as to the relationships of the sponges com- 

 prised therein. 



1 would therefore like to point out, for the benefit of those 

 who might otherwise be misled by Dr. von Lendenfeld's 

 statements : — (1) That on November 14th, 1889, 1 communi- 

 cated a paper on " The Pseudogastrula-stage in the Develop- 

 ment of Calcareous Sponges " to the Koyal Society of 

 Victoria ; (2) that in this paper I gave a preliminary account 

 of the results of my researches on the anatomy of " Teicho- 

 nella lahyrinthica " and " T. ivolifera^'' stating distinctly 

 that " T. lahyrinihica " is a true Sycon and " T. prolifera''^ a 

 typical Leucon ; and (3) that I sent a copy of this paper to 

 Dr. von Lendenfeld. 



In short, my main conclusions as to the structure and 

 relationships of the " Teichonidffi " (with the exception of 

 '"'■ EiUiardia Schidzeij'' concerning which we both owe our 

 anatomical information to Polejaeff) were published and 

 received in Europe many months before the date on which 

 Dr. von Lendenfeld says he read the preliminary paper on 

 which he bases his remarkable claim to independent 

 discovery. 



As I have pointed out previously, Mr. Carter himself was 

 the first to show that '"'' Teichonella lahyrinihica'^ is a true 

 Sycon : but this statement of his had passed quite unnoticed, 



4* 



