68 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. (January, 1913. 
1 obtained five specimens, which varied in size from 35 x 
23 x 21 mm. to 85 x 75 x 60 mm., the last measurement being 
that of the greatest depth of the actual sponge in each case. 
Two. approached the largest specimen in bulk, and one was 
only a little bigger than the smallest. The colour in life was 
dull grey with a tinge of glaucous green. This tinge has com- 
pletely disappeared from dried specimens, but traces of it still 
remain in fragments preserved in alcohol. An examination of 
both living and preserved material convinces me that it was due 
not to intracellular, but to extracellular parasitic algae such as 
Topsent found in much greater profusion in his examples. 
case, and sometimes in that of the main oscula also, there are 
radiating channels entering the osculum on the surface and only 
covered by the dermal membrane. 
e dermal membrane is not easily separated from the 
sponge. Although not greatly thickened, it has a somewhat 
he dermal pores are minute, but I have not been able to 
detect pore-cells on the external surface or in any other part 
of the sponge, although I have made a careful examination of 
well-stained histological material. 
The most characteristic feature of the skeleton did not at- 
tract the attention of the author of the species, probably 
because his material was imperfect. I mean the skeletal cortex 
formed by the apparent thickening of the transverse spicule- 
fibres a short distance below the dermal membrane. ‘The distal 
part of the vertical fibres, which are interrupted in their 
