92 On the Zoological Affinities of the Sponges. 
The degree of intimacy in which Sponges are to be 
associated with Actinozoa, Hydrozoa, and Ctenophora is a 
question which Hiickel does not attempt to decide as yet; and 
ere Mr. Kent has unintentionally done the brilliant Professor 
of Jena an injustice. He does not definitely propose, as Mr. 
Kent represents, to group Sponges with Corals as Thamnoda, 
at the same time placing Hydromedusse and Ctenophora in 
an equivalent group Meduse ; this he merely offers as a sug- 
gestion of the direction which affairs may have to take on 
account of the closer affinities of Sponges with Corals than 
with Hydroids*. He is more inclined at present to the 
to exhibit their relations in a true genetic classification ; and 
as yet, I venture to think, the two groups cannot be placed 
much nearer than within the limits of a large division: 
the higher Nematophora are not more closely ‘related in 
blood” to the Sponges than is Aphrodite to the bested or the 
Mammalia to Amphioxus, allowance being made in the com- 
parison for the increased complexity of structure of the Worms 
and Vertebrates. 
Professor P. J. Van Beneden of Louvain long since ex- 
pressed very much the same opinion as to the nature of Sponges 
as that now advocated by Hückel, and previously to him b 
Leuckart—that is, so far as affinities with the Coelenterata 
generally are concerned. Professor Van Beneden, in his work 
* Zoologie médicale ’ (Paris, 1859, t. ii. p. 394), written in con- 
je with Professor Gervais, said of the Sponge, “ C'est 
animal du type polype réduit à sa plus simple expression.” 
3 x Through such a form as Protohydra it is more easy, if we only look 
omacmea eanne 
but we must allow that in ast time there have existed very simple 
Anthozoa also, which are not known to us now. 
