7A = M.C. Mereschkowsky on a new Genus of Sponge. 
(1872). I refer to the Cladorhiza abyssicola of M. Sars. 
This sponge, which lives only at great depths, and which 
resembles rather a Hydroid or a Bryozoon than a sponge, has 
‘as a characteristic feature that the whole of it is entirely 
massive, absolutely without even traces of canals or of any 
cavity, and consequently without either buccal orifice or 

Cladorhiza abyssicola, M. Sars*. 
pores ; and yet every one who reads M. Sars’s description will 
be convinced that he has to do with a true sponge. In the 
White Sea also I have met with an Hsperza (?) with long, © 
filiform processes, like roots, which anastomose and form a 
network covering seaweeds and other bodies. Throughout 
their length, however, these are destitute not only of pores, 
but in general of canals or cavities, and are entirely composed 
of “syncytium ” with spicules. 
It is with the support of these facts that I cannot be of the 
* Sars, ‘On some Remarkable Forms of Animal Life, &c.,’ pl. vi. 
fig. 17. 
