~I 
Mr. H. J. Carter on Spongiophaga Pottsi. 35 
a | 
prolongation from the process of the chitinous coat (fig. 2, ¢), 
becoming suddenly contracted into a narrow axial canal about 
1-6000thinch in diameter (“‘Achsenstrang,”’ Schulze), fig.2,hh, 
in which may be observed little glairy fatty-looking globules 
in broken linear arrangement for some distance (fig. 2, £), 
connected with those at the bottom that occupy the expandea 
part of the canal (fig. 2,7), and are in direct continuation 
with the mass which may (so long as there are any left) fill 
the prolongation from the process of the chitinous coat (fig. 2, d), 
that, again, are supplied from the germinal contents of the 
statoblast (fig. 2, aa), through the aperture in the mammi- 
form process of the chitinous coat (fig. 2, 6, c); so that the 
germinal contents may thus be traced directly from the sponge 
into the axial canal of the filament (fig. 2,e,4). Surface of the 
filament towards its fixed end presenting transverse parallel 
rugee about 1-1200th inch in diameter (fig. 2, g). Length of 
full-grown filament not ascertainable in the slides, from its 
extreme tortuosity and intermingling with its neighbours. 
Hab. Spongilla. Attached, when present, close to the end 
of a tubular prolongation extended from the process of the 
chitinous coat of the statoblast, which prolongation is always 
open at its free extremity (fig. 1 wae 
Loc. Centennial Grounds at Philadelphia, and at Bethle- 
hem, Pennsylvania, United States, in a new species of 
Spongilla to be described hereafter by Mr. Potts; and at 
Buffalo, Lake Erie, in Meyenia (Spongilla) Baileyi, Bk., sent 
to Mr. Potts by Mr. H. Mills. 
Obs. This parasite, like the marine species, is not a com- 
mensalist, but a devourer of its host, in the present instance 
confined to the statoblasts, while in the marine sponges, there 
being no statoblasts, it feeds upon the sarcode, which here con- 
tains the ovules or germinal contents, more especially on Hirci- 
nia. When in Spongiophaga Pottsi we have before our eyes the 
filament attached to the open tubular prolongation of the process 
of the chitinous coat, through which the richest partof the sponge 
(that is, the germinal contents of the statoblast) must issue, and 
we can trace these contents directly into the axial canal of the 
filament, as before mentioned—considering the presence of a 
corrugated surface of the filament externally consisting of 
transverse parallel rugz, and that the prolongation from the pro- 
cess of the chitinous coat, together with the filaments, is pre- 
sent in some specimens of the same species of Spongilla and 
not in others, as in those of Meyenia (Spongilla) Baileyz, Bk., 
from Buffalo and noé in those from Lehigh Gap, in Pennsyl- 
vania, as shown by the slides, I cannot help thinking that 
the prolongation beyond the process of the chitinous coat of 
Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 5. Vol. viii. 25 
