

354 Mr. H. J. Carter's Contributions to our 



Loc. Galle, Ceylon. 



Obs. This specimen, which is stated to have been taken in 

 the living state from the coral-reef, where it grew, by Dr. 

 Ondaatji, of Ceylon, is now, I understand from Mr. B. W. 

 Priest, who sent it to me, in the British Museum. It is a 

 remarkable species, on account of the form and size of the 

 globostellate of which the crust is chiefly composed, thus pre- 

 senting at the same time a flesh-spicule like the large globo- 

 stellate of Donatio, lyncurium and an incrustation like that of 

 Geodia. As in the last species, viz. S. reticulata, the fully 

 developed form may be traced up from great minuteness. 



3. Theneanina (new group). 



When the late Dr. J. E. Gray was arranging the Spon- 

 gida for the purpose of classification (Proc. Zool. Soc, May 

 J 867, p. 492), he found it necessary, among other things, to 

 extricate from confusion Dr. Bowerbank's u Tethea muricuta" 

 and, substituting the term u Thenea" while lie confined that 

 of "Tethya— Tethea " to those sponges whose type is Teihya 

 cranium. Lain., placed both in his fifth family, viz. the 

 " Tethyadse." If we do not take this view of the case, the 

 jeims is worth nothing; for, misled by Dr. Bowerbank's state- 

 ment respecting Tethea muricata (Mon. B. S. vol. i, p. 25), 

 Dr. Gray gives as the first diagnosis, that the a simple spicules," 

 i. e. the body -spicules or acerates, are u not protruded beyond 

 the surface," which is erroneous, inasmuch as their protru- 

 sion is common to all the Pachytragida, bearing the same 

 relation as a cat's claw to its sheath, in so far as they 

 can be covered or uncovered as occasion may require. How 

 this should have occurred when Prof. Sollas states that 

 Dr. Gray had a u real knowledge " of this sponge I cannot 

 understand (Soil as, " Report on the Sponge-fauna of Nor- 



way," ' Annals, 7 1882, vol. ix. p. 429). Subsequently Jl.ll .S. 

 1 Lightning' returned to Oban, on the 21st Sept. 1868, 

 bringing dredgings from the Atlantic Ocean between the 

 north of Scotland and the Faroe Islands, made under the 

 auspices of Dr. Carpenter and Sir (then Dr.) Wyvillc Thom- 

 son ; and on the 15th of April of the following year, 

 1869, Dr. Perceval Wright exhibited at the Dublin Micro- 

 scopical Society the spiculation of a little sponge which Dr. 

 W allich had dredged up from the North-Atlantic sea-bed on 

 board H.M.S. 'Bulldog' in 1860, stating that "he (Dr. 

 Wright) would not further for the present allude to it 77 

 (Quart. Journ. Microscop. Science, Oct. 1869, p. 422). 



Sir 











