110 Mr. H. J. Carter on new Sponges. 
Orkney fishermen ;” but if we are to be influenced by the form 
only, since he does not add, as in many instances, that it has 
been identified with the type specimen, then it is necessary to 
look at Johnston’s illustration (Brit. Spong. pl. u. fig. 1), 
where we shall find nothing but a common branched sponge, 
without any likeness whatever to a hand or glove. I myself 
also have a straight branch about 6 inches long and 1 inch in 
diameter at the base, which is somewhat contracted, wherein 
the vents are confined to a line on both sides in the way 
noticed by Fleming (Brit. Animals, p. 523), and the specimen 
so little compressed that it is almost identical in form with 
a similar growth of Chalina rubens; but feeling almost 
certain that it was a genuine specimen of Chalina palmata, 
since, although of a grey colour from being a washed- 
out portion, traces of the peculiar anchorate first described and 
illustrated by Dr. Bowerbank (/. c.) still exist in it, I sought 
the comparison which Bowerbank seems not to have done, 
viz. microscopic examination of the type specimen labelled 
Halichondria palmata, no. 2, registered 47. 9. 7. 1, now in 
the Johnstonian collection at the British Museum, and found 
that this also is not only a washed-out one and grey in colour, 
like my own, but also now contains only towards the axis of 
the branch, some of the characteristic anchorates (not like that 
in the Bowerbank collection, which is the aforesaid ‘*‘ Mer- 
maid’s Glove”? form, with the sarcode on, and of a brown: 
colour, charged abundantly with the anchorate). ‘Thus Dr. 
Bowerbank’s specimen becomes identified with the type speci- 
men in the Johnstonian collection. It requires some time, 
however, to find out the anchorate in the latter, even with the 
aid of soaking in liq. potassee, wherefore, perhaps, it is not 
figured in my first and rather hurried examination made 
several years ago 3 and it is just possible too that this accounts 
for Dr. Bowerbank’s silence on the point. 
As regards change of nomenclature, it might be observed 
that, when we find Johnston placing this sponge next before 
his Halichondria oculata and H. cervicornis (op. cit.), which 
were rightly designated by Dr. Bowerbank “ Chaline” (B. 
S. vol. il. pp. 361 and 364), and that Dr. Bowerbank’s dia- 
gnosis of Isodictya (ibid. p. 9) begins thus :—‘ Skeleton 
without fibre, composed of a symmetrical network of spicula,” 
&e., type specimen ‘‘Isodictya palmata,”’ while that of his 
“‘ Chalina”’ (ibid. p. 13) commences with “‘ Skeleton fibrous. 
Fibres keratose, solid, cylindrical, and interspiculate”’ [? in- 
trospiculate], type specimen “‘Chalina oculata,” it will not be 
considered unreasonable, as the specimens in the Johnstonian 
collection and my own also would, in their ‘“ washed-out ” 
