52 Mr. W. L. Distant on a new Species of Poecilopsaltria. 



and no correct account of the anatomy of the sponge in ques- 

 tion had appeared until the publication of raj work. 



I am aware that in his " Monograph of the Australian 

 Sponges " (Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. W. vol. ix. p. 1140) Dr. von 

 Lendenfeld accepted the " family " with some hesitation. He 

 says, " I have not seen any representatives of this family 

 myself, but am of opinion that they might perhaps be con- 

 sidered as colonies of Leucones or Sycones, as Marshall 

 asserted before PoldjaefF's essay was published." He also 

 says of" Teichonella lahip'inthica^^ {loo. cit. p. 1142), "The 

 anatomy of this sponge is totally unknown, so that its name 

 and position here are only preliminary." How near Marshall's 

 opinion came to the truth of the matter spougologists will b3 

 able to judge for themselves. Since the publication of the 

 above remarks Dr. von Lendenfeld has repeatedly maiut.iined 

 the " family Teichonida," and continued to do so until the 

 very year in which my i)reliminaiy results were published. 

 In other words, from 1885 till 1890 Dr. von Lendenfeld 

 stuck to the family ; then, when the outcome of my 

 researches on "71 labyrinthica'''' and ^'■T. proUfera^^ had been 

 published and sent to him, he suddenly dropped the " family " 

 and adopted my views without giving any reasons foi- so 

 doing. Surely it is taxing our credulity too much to ask us 

 to believe that he arrived at his results independently ! 



Melbourne, 

 November 8, 1892. 



Xn. — Description of a neio Species of the Cicadan Gena<i 

 Poecilopsaltria. By W. L. Distant. 



The very beautiful species here described was obtained by 

 Herrn P. Frey at Nossi-Be, an island near the north-west 

 coast of Madagascar. Dr. Karl Brancsik, who has already 

 commenced to publish the results of this expedition (' Jahres- 

 hefte des naturw. Vereines des Trencsiuer Comitates,' 1890- 

 91, xiii. u. xiv. Jahrg.), has submitted a specimen to me for 

 identification, which proves to be a perfectly new species. 



Poecilopsaltria Brancsiki, sp. n. 



$ . Head and thorax above ochraceous, the lateral and 

 posterior margins of the pronotum greenish ochraceous. 

 Head with a cruciform spot at centre of front and a spot at 

 each basal angle of same, a broken transverse fascia between 



