Mr. H. J. Carter on Spongiophaga Pottsi. 359 
longation extended from the process of the chitinous coat, on 
which the reproductive elements must have settled, are not 
only very short but of different lengths in different statoblasts 
(figs. 5, 6)—namely in one, the shortest, not more than 
1-4000th inch long (that is, mere points, fig. 6,¢c), with the 
wall of the prolongation from the process of the chitinous coat 
extremely thin (fig. 6, a), and the statoblast from which it 
proceeds about 1-60th inch in diameter, and in another, the 
longest, on the slide (fig. 5, a) not more than the 1-60th inch 
long, with the wall of the prolongation much thickened and 
the statoblast 1-40th inch in diameter, while every variety of 
length with proportionate thickness in all occurs between these 
two in different statoblasts on the same slide. 
Thus, then, we can trace the filament back to two points, 
one on each side of the tubular prolongation from the process 
of the chitinous coat towards its termination, where it is dilated, 
and ends, as usual, in an open mouth; while these “ points ”’ 
(which, as just stated, are not more than the 1-4000th inch long) 
appear here, as well as in all other instances, to be connected 
round the tube—that is, as it were, to embrace it by a thinner 
substance or membranous expansion (figs.6, d, and4, d), which, 
by alteration of the focus, can be seen to make them continu- 
ous, whence it has seemed to me that they must be two dis- 
tinct individuals which have thus grown together, as in the 
fully developed filament they open separately into the tubular 
prolongation, one on each side (fig. 2, 2) —or that there was only 
one embryo, and that, growing in opposite directions, it ended 
in this development. What the individual embryo may be 
like I cannot pretend to say ; butif still more reduced in size, 
_ say to a sphere, it would lose the filiform character and then 
become undistinguishable from other like objects if not found 
to bear some special character. When rudimentary, too, these 
filaments are crooked and bent almost to angularity most 
irregularly (figs. 7, 8,65), while those in the specimen from 
Philadelphia are incomparably longer and even (fig. 1,994), 
although they also become more or less crooked and irregular 
towards their respective free ends (fig. 2, n, 0). Still, as 
may be seen from the illustrations, they too may respectively 
be terminated by the simply hooked or bilobate extremity, as 
observed in the Spongilla from Philadelphia; at the same 
time more extended observation is necessary before the per- 
sistence of such forms can be satisfactorily established. 
Of this development, then, in Meyenia (Spongilla) Bailey: 
Bk., from Buffalo, being Spongiophaga Pottst, 1 have no more 
doubt than that the mounted fragments from Lehigh Gap (to 
which I have already alluded, which is about fifty-five miles 
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