166 Dr. J. E. Gray on the Arrangement 



all homy matter, with scarcely any appreciable silica ; hut in 

 a large collection of spicules from different sponges the two 

 forms pass into each other almost insensibly. I must consider 

 that the Coralloid Sponges are sponges which have the sili- 

 ceous spicules anchylosed together by siliceous matter ; some 

 of the fibrous sponges consist of siliceous spicules cemented 

 together by horny matter, and others of horny matter only, 

 without any imbedded spicules — the only difference between 

 the two extremes being the abundance of silica in the first and 

 the more or less entire absence of it in the last kind ; so that it 

 is a matter of little importance whether they are called spicules 

 or fibres. 



Dr. Bowerbank's considering the distinction of so much 

 importance perhaps leads him into the following extraordinary 

 observation : — " In the solid siliceous fibres of Dactylocalyx^ 

 fig. 274, pi. 15, and in the tubular siliceous fibres oiFarrea occa 

 (Bowerlaank's MS. fig. 277, pi. 15), and especially in the latter, 

 we observe a very much closer approximation to the tubular 

 form of the bones of the higher classes of animals " (B. S. i. 

 p. 28). Dr. Bowerbank has odd notions respecting the analo- 

 gies between the parts of sponges and vertebrate animals : 

 thus, in the characters of Geodia, he speaks of pores fui'nished 

 with " ossojjJiageal tubes " (B. S. i. p. 167). 



Dactylocalyx purnicea was well described by Mr. Stutchbury 

 in the Proceedings of the Zool. Soc. for 1841, p. 86, from 

 a specimen that had been sent from Barbadoes to the Bristol 

 Museum. Mr. Stutchbury most kindly let me have half of 

 the Bristol specimen which he described, which is now in the 

 British Museum. Dr. Bowerbank repeatedly refers to this 

 species, under Stutchbury's name, in his ' British Sponges ' 

 (see pp. 204, 274, &c.). There is a similar sponge in the 

 Museum of the Jardin des Plantes, where it is called " Iphi- 

 teon j>antcea {Dactylocalyx, Stutchbury)," a gemmule of which 

 is represented by fig. 341 of Dr. Bowerbank's ^ British Sponges.' 

 Some years ago I obtained from the late Mr. Thomas Ingall 

 a beautiful small specimen of this sponge, which he had re- 

 ceived from St. Vincent, in the West Indies, where, I believe, 

 it was obtained by Mr. Lansdown Guilding. Mr. Ingall in- 

 formed me that he bought it with a number of sponges in a 

 very dirty condition at the sale of Mr. Guilding's specimens 

 in King Street, Covent Garden. Dr. Bowerbank, at p. 259 

 of his first volume of ^ British Sponges,' observes, " [The 

 spinulo-quadrifurcate hexradiate stellate spicules] occur abun- 

 dantly in a beautiful and unique specimen of a cup-shaped 

 siliceo-fibrous sponge formerly in the cabinet of my friend 

 Mr. Thomas Ingall, now in the British Museum." This spe- 



