232 Reviews—C. E. Beecher—On the Brachiospongide. 
Echeneis in the Glarus slates, as discovered by Wettstein. The 
Pediculati or Lophiide are still only known, among fossils, in the 
Eocene of Monte Bolca; and the Cottide, Cataphracti, Gobiide, 
and Blenniide, are soon enumerated, the only striking forms being 
the problematical Petalopteryx and Cheirothriz from Mount Lebanon. 
Among the Mugiliformes, the so-called Sphyrena Amici, of Mount 
Lebanon, is rightly omitted; but it may be added that both Calamo- 
pleurus and Cladocyclus are well known from the English Chalk,’ 
and Dictyodus does not pertain to this family, but to the Scombridee.? 
There is also some doubt concerning Apsopelix, Cope, for it is men- 
tioned both here and in the Stratodontide (p. 269). The Blochiide, 
with the single remarkable extinct genus, Blochius, from Monte 
Bolca, follow the Mugiliformes ; and the Aulostomi close the Acan- 
thopteran series. 
Of the important modern order Anacanthini, so few extinct forms 
are known that less than two pages suffice for their consideration. 
Both the Gadide and Pleuronectide range from the Hocene upwards, 
but much yet remains to be discovered concerning their ancestry 
and precise relationships. 
In conclusion, Dr. v. Zittel devotes twenty pages to a general ” 
summary of our knowledge of the distribution of fossil fishes in 
space and time; and this unique work of reference is thus made 
available for the Stratigraphical Geologist equally with the systematic 
Ichthy ologist. A. Surra Woopwarp. 
TI.—Bracuiosponcipm: A Memoir on a Group oF SILURIAN SPONGES. 
With Six Plates. By Cuartes Emerson Bexcuer. Memorrs 
or THE Prasopy Musrum or Yate Universiry, Vol. i. pt. 1. 
(New Haven, Conn., 1889. Imp. 4to. 28 pp.) 
ie peculiar sponges to which Prof. O. C. Marsh gave the name 
of Brachiospongia have been described and figured since 
1838, but hitherto their structural characters have been unknown. 
Mr. Beecher has carefully studied the specimens obtained by Prof. 
Marsh, and, aided by this gentleman’s liberality, has brought out the 
present beautifully illustrated Memoir, in which the real nature of 
these sponges is satisfactorily shown. 'The sponges themselves— 
which sometimes reach to a foot in diameter—consist of an open 
cup-shaped, central body, from which a number of curved, tubular 
finger-like processes project. The sponge-wall is built up of spicules 
of the hexactinellid type, which do not appear to be cemented 
together, with the exception of those forming the dermal layer, 
which are apparently fused into an irregular quadrate mesh. There 
is considerable variety in the outer form and the number of the pro- 
jecting arms in different specimens, but Mr. Beecher has done wisely 
in regarding them as belonging to a single species, B. digitata, D. D. 
Owen, sp. Another hexactinellid sponge having a peculiar lobate 
or tuberous form and a stout wisp or rope of anchoring spicules is 
placed in a new genus Strobilospongia. These sponges have been 
1 Proc. Geol. Assoc. vol. x. pp. 324, 325. 
2 Dollo and Storms, Zool. Anzeiger, No. 279 (1888). 
