18G8.] DR. J. S. BOWERBANK ON SPONGES. 129 



has never been out of my possession. We may naturally ask what 

 confidence can we place in the system of an author who is so syste- 

 mitically incorrect ? 



In this style Dr. Gray has described sixty-five sponges in my pos- 

 session which he has never seen ; and of these sixty-five, fifty are the 

 types of a portion of his new genera. The consequences of this 

 mode of proceeding are that he has fallen into some most extra- 

 ordinary errors. I will not weary my readers by specifying and 

 criticising all the author's efforts of this description ; the first one 

 in his list, extracted from the ' Monograph of British Sponges,' will 

 suffice for the purpose. Page .533. — "3. jEyogropila. Sponge 

 massive or coating, rugose. Oscules large, dispersed. Skin spicu- 

 lose. Skeleton reticulated ; fibres formed of bungled spicules. Spi- 

 cules of four kinds:—]. Fusiform, needle-like, or subclavate. 2. 

 contorted and reversed, bihamate. 3. Inequianchorate, bidentate. 

 4. Fusiform, iricurvate." 



If this generic character be compared with the specific character 

 of Desmacidon cegagropila, Mon. Brit. Sponges, vol. ii. p. 352, 

 it will be at once seen to be almost verbatim the same, with the 

 exception of a new generic cliaracter of the author's own inven- 

 tion, that of "bungled spicules," the meaning of which I must 

 leave to the reader's own imagination. There is also an altera- 

 tion in the name of the author's new genus, which is printed Mgo- 

 gropila in place of j^gagropila, the original specific name of Dr. 

 Johnston, sufficiently applicable to the species, but not so as a 

 generic name. 



Similar distortions of estabUshed generic and specific names occur 

 in several other instances. Thus, in page 507 of his paper, for 

 Farrea orca, we should read F. occa; pages 503 and 515, for 

 Opihistosjiongia read OpJditaspongia ; page 545, 20. Vibulimis, for 

 var. damicenus read damicornis ; page 534, lophon, for bipolicated 

 read bipocillated ; page 527, 2. Pohjmastica read Polymastia ; page 

 527, 1. Pencillaria, S. 2)encillus should be 5'. penicillus ; jiage 542, 

 7. for Eciumemia read Ecionemia ; page 532, synopsis of sections 

 of Family II., bi- or tripolicated should be bipocillated; there is 

 no such form as tripocillatcd. Other errors of the same descrip- 

 tion occur dispersed through the work ; but these will serve to dis- 

 play the loose and careless style in which the author has treated his 

 subject. 



But these are not the most extraordinary efforts of the author; for 

 in one case he has not only made two new genera and two new 

 species out of one species, but out of one individual of that species, 

 and without having seen the sponge or even the slip of glass contain- 

 ing the spicula from which he derives his two new genera. He 

 bases his new genus Dymniis, page 53Q. no. 27, on the figures of 

 spicula represented in my work on British Sj)onges, vol. i. pi. 5. 

 figs. 115-117, and his genus Bamo, page 539, no. 28, on the 

 spicula represented by figures 118-120 in the same plate, not being 

 aware that both forms are contained in the same slide of sponge- 

 spicula, which was prepared from a small fragment of a sponge from 

 Proc. Zool. Soc— 1868, No. IX. 



