Rev. A. M. Norman on the Genus Haliphysema. 283 
Room of the British Museum with its radiating desks (sup- 
posing them carried up to the roof) will be analogous to what 
we have in the dome-shaped base of Haliphysema, while the 
long series of Libraries connected with each other only by 
doors represents the typical polythalamous character of the 
Foraminifera. 
Secondly. Are we really to understand Mr. Carter to mean 
that if his own examination of living Haliphysema should 
confirm Haeckel’s discovery of the existence of ‘‘ collared, fla- 
gellated monadic bodies,” or, as Carter has elsewhere named 
them, “ spongozoa,” he will still maintain that the organism 
furnished with these spongozoa is a Foraminifer? All I can 
say is that I should await with interest the arguments by 
which he would maintain such a view. 
Further on Mr. Carter states that Schmidt (Archiv f. 
mikroskop. Anat. Bd. xiv. p. 260) has referred Haliphysema 
echinoides, Haeckel, to the genus Stelletta. I have not seen 
this paper of Schmidt. It is hardly conceivable that that 
eminent spongologist can have come to such a conclusion 
from the examination of Haeckel’s figure and description ; for 
if tab. x. represents accurately the type *, it appears to me 
as impossible to suppose that the spicules drawn belong to the 
sponge and are in natural position, as it is to suppose (as 
Haeckel wrongly imagined) that the spicula in Perceval 
Wright’s admirable illustration of Wyvilletomsonia are not 
in their natural position t. It may be that Schmidt has exa- 
mined the type specimen, that the drawing is wrong, and 
that on this ground he asserts that Haeckel’s species is a 
Stelletta. If that be so, cadat questio. 
Lastly, I do not understand what Mr. Carter means when, 
in reference to the form of the dome-shaped base of Haliphy- 
sema, he contrasts with it the ‘embryo of the Spongida,” 
which “ grows up into branches from a 7oot.” Barroist has 
represented the early canal-system (pl. xv. fig. 35) in the 
young of Halisarca lobularis, Schmidt, just passing from the 
* Unfortunately we are never sure when looking at Haeckel’s beautiful 
plates whether we have before us what the draftsman actually saw, or 
whether the figure is a representation of what he thought he ought to see, 
and which his theorizing led him to the conclusion should be seen. 
+ Ihave many specimens of Wyvilletomsonia Wallichii, P. Wright 
(= Tisiphonia agariciformis, Wyv.-Tom.,= Dorvillia agariciformis, Kent), 
as small as that represented in the type, and one specimen not one fourth - 
of that size; and it is from the examination of these specimens that I 
state positively that Wright and Carter have correctly regarded it as a 
corticate sponge. ‘ 
{ Barrois (C.), “Mémoire sur l’Embryologie de quelques poner de la 
Manche,” Annales des Sci. Natur. vit sér. Zoologie, tom. ili. 1876, 
19* 
