512 MR. E. W. SHANN ON 



the verrucse. Wright and Studer (1889) described a specimen 

 under the name Spongodes nejjhthyceformis, concerning which 

 they observe : — " The entire habit of the colony recalls much 

 more that of Nephihya than that of Spongodes, and this im- 

 pression is strengthened by the slight development of the spicules 

 surmounting the little heads, whence the colony does not appear 

 so prickly as other species .... The species must be referred to 

 the genus Spongodes, because the polyps are placed sideways 

 within a bundle of spicules, although these only project slightly." 

 That is to say, Wright and Studer recognised on the anthocodife 

 of Sp. nephthyceformis the presence of what is now known as a 

 " Stiitzbiindel," and here we have the starting-point of the 

 difficulty of discriminating between the genera Spongodes and 

 Neplithya. Holm (1895) faced the problem of reconstructing 

 the genus Spongodes in the light of the knowledge which had 

 accumulated since Lesson first described the genus in 1834. 

 This author pointed out that Spongodes nephihywformis W. h St. 

 is identical with Neplithya chctbrolii Audouin, and added that 

 iV. chabrolii differs from Spongodes in many characters, such as 

 the branching of the colony and the arrangement of the polyps : 

 on these characters one can establish two geneia, but it is 

 necessary then to add to the genus NepMhya many species 

 hitherto included in the genus Spongodes, including the type 

 Sp. celosia. Though Holm shrank from submitting a well-known 

 type like Sp>ongodes celosia to such treatment, he proceeded 

 fearlessly to include all the species of Nephthya, including the 

 type N. chabrolii, within the genus Spongodes ; he retained 

 Nephthya, however, as a subgeneric title. Here was a step in 

 the direction of elucidation ; Nephthya and Sp>ongodes,?i& hitherto 

 defined, were shown to be synonymous; but Holm's solution of 

 the problem threw too great a burden on Spongodes. Kiikenthal 

 (1895), writing during the year in which Holm's paper was 

 published, accepted the genus Spongodes in its new distended 

 form ; but the term Spongodes had become so obviously cumber- 

 some that this author (Kiikenthal), in a later paper *, reinstated 

 Nephthya with full generic honours. In this paper Kiikenthal gave 

 a summary of the family ISTephthyidse, and divided the various 

 genera into two groups as they possessed or lacked a " Stiitz- 

 biindel " ; he summed up his remarks as follows : — " Innerhalb 

 der Familie der Nephthyiden ist als wichtigstes Merkmal zu 

 betrachten, ob die Polypenkopfchen terminal auf ihrem unteren 

 Telle, dem Stiele, sitzen oder seitlich davon. Letzterer Fall tritt 

 stets dann ein, wenn sich auf einer Seite, der oberen, ein Biindel 

 Spicula besonders stark entwickelt : das Stiitzbiindel." The 

 genera possessing a " Stiitzbiindel " were distinguished from one 

 another by the disposition of the polyps on the colony, as Holm 

 (1895) had already suggested; the xi&xq.b Nephthya was applied 

 to forms resembling the original type N. chabrolii Audouin, in 

 which the polyps are collected on branchlets, the latter being 

 arranged in catkins or lappets, and the name Spongodes was 



* Abb. Senckenb. Ges. Frankfurt, vol. xxiii. p. 88 (1896). 



