Rev. A. M. Norman on the Genus Haliphysema. 271 
of course falls to the ground. MHaeckel’s observations alto- 
gether appear to give the strongest confirmation to the 
opinion originally entertained by Dr. Bowerbank as to the 
position of this animal, though in the arrangement of genera 
itis very far removed from Polymastia on the one hand, and 
from LHuplectella (= Alcyoncellum, Bow.) on the other, in 
juxtaposition with which its describer placed it. Taking Mr. 
Carter’s to be the best classification as yet suggested for the 
Spongida, I should place the ‘‘ Physemaria”’ of Haeckel as an 
order between Carter’s Order IT. Ceratina (=the horny-fibrous- 
skeleton sponges), and Order III. Psammonemata (=sponges 
having a skeleton composed of fibre in which sand is incorpo- 
rated) ; and I would suggest as the name of such an order 
Psamihoteichina (reZyos, a wall). The genera and species 
adopted by Haeckel will be noticed further on. 
Mr. Kent’s ‘‘ Observations upon Prof. Haeckel’s Group of 
the ‘ Physemaria,’ and on the Affinity of Sponges,” published 
in the ‘ Annals’ for last January, while it makes us anxious to 
see the full iliustration of his views in the forthcoming me- 
moir in the ‘Linnean Transactions,’ does not throw any 
special light upon Haliphysema, which he does not appear to 
have ever seen. His observations confirm those of Prof. H. 
James-Clark in every particular, carrying investigation fur- 
ther into those orders of the sponges in which Clark had 
not observed the presence of the “ collar-bearing ’’ monads. 
Prof. Clark found himself unable to do more than infer the 
position of the mouth, which he regarded as situated at the 
base, or close to the base, of the flagellum, to which place he 
believed that the particles of food were brought by the rota- 
tory action of the flagellum. Mr. Kent assumes that the 
whole of the collar, “consisting of an exquisitely delicate 
film of sarcode, and exhibiting a circulating stream, ascending 
on the outside and descending on the inside,” and “ consti- 
tuting a wonderful and most admirably constructed trap for 
the purpose of drawing towards it and arresting passing parti- 
cles of food,”’ ‘‘ must necessarily be characterized as the oral 
or inceptive”’ organ. I would ask him to consider whether 
organs designed for the purpose of bringing food-particles 
within reach of the mouth are to be regarded as the mouth 
itself. The action of the collar performs, it would appear from 
his description, an office similar in function to that discharged 
by the cilia of the “ wheels” of the Rotifera. 
Lastly, we have the paper by Mereschkowsky upon Wag- 
nerella, a highly interesting little sponge. But this animal, 
though in form assimilating closely to Haliphysema, apparently 
widely differs, since the spicules both of the stem and head are 
