128 DR. J. S. BOWERBANK ON SPONGES. [Feb. 13, 



the slightest notice of his intended appropriation of it. Numerous 

 cases of this description occur in his " Notes on the Arrangement of 

 Sponges ;" and I cannot give a better instance of it than that of his 

 genus Astrostoma, p. 514. 



As an example of the facility and inaccuracy with which Dr. 

 Gray propounds a new genus, in part 1 of the Proceedings of the 

 Zoological Society for 18G7, in his paper on Zoanthino'., in treating 

 ofPff/y^Aoa, p. 238, he writes thus: — "Mr. Bowerbank, in his 'British 

 Sponges' (t. 20. fig. 307), figures a very similar body, which he de- 

 scribes as a portion of the dermal surface of an undescribed sponge 

 from the East Indies, having numerous depressed pores, furnished 

 withstomata, like protective organs. Mr. Tyler, F.L.S., has kindly 

 shown me some specimens of the sponge mounted as a transparent 

 and an opake object ; and they are very like a parasitic actinoid 

 polype ; but the rays are strengthened with spicules on the surface, 

 and on the tips with some prominent ones (which form a pencil), 

 unlike any Actinia I have seen, and so they are perhaps sponges. 

 If so, they ought to form a genus, which may be called Astrostoma." 

 Such a mention of a microscopic fragment would certainly never be 

 considered a fit characterization of a new genus ; and yet, in his 

 paper on Sponges, part 2 of the Proceedings of the Zool. Soc. for 

 1867, p. 514, it is quoted thus: — "Astrostoma, Gray, P. Z. S. 

 1867, p. 239." He now proceeds to characterize his new genus as 

 follows : — " 9. Astrostoma. Sponge solitary, branched ; fibres horny, 

 flexible. Oscules ? circular, scattered and concave, sunk in the sur- 

 face, with eight or ten rays, which are covered with spicules. 

 Spicules small, subulate, in corneous fibre." He subsequently writes, 

 " I have been enabled, through Mr. Tyler, to examine the original 

 specimens from which Dr. Bowerbank described this species, which 

 is probably a parasite like the genus Bergia of Michelotti." 



In every one of these details he is completely wi'ong. In the 

 first place, what he means by " solitary," as a generic character, I 

 really cannot comprehend ; secondly, it is not branched. It is a 

 simple unbranched cylinder, nine inches in lengtli, and three-fourths 

 of an inch in diameter for a considerable portion of its length. 

 Thirdly, it has not a particle of keratose fibre in its structure, being 

 purely spiculo-reticulate ; audit is quite inflexible. The author then 

 describes the inhalant areas as oscules, and does not mention the 

 true oscula, although two out of twenty-one of them are figured in a 

 portion of this sponge (Mon. Brit. Sponges, vol. i. plate 20. fig. 308), 

 and are described, along with the inhalant areas, in page 278 of the 

 same work ; and lastly, the spicula are not subulate, nor are they 

 " in corneous fibre." Thus there is not a single point in the de- 

 scriptive character of the author's genus Astrostoma that is correct. 

 Nor is Dr. Gray correct in stating that he has " been enabled, through 

 Mr, Tyler, to examine the original specimens from which Dr. Bower- 

 bank described the species," as the original specimen has never 

 been out of my hands, Mr. Tyler having only received from me a 

 small piece from which to mount microscopical specimens. The 

 specimen figured in vol, i. Mon. Brit. Sponges, plate 20. fig. 307, 



