350 ME, A. DENDY ON WEST-INDIAN CHALININE SPONGES. 



In the first of these publications we find described a large number of sponges ; but I 

 may say, in the words of Mr. Carter, " the work is so full of errors, typographical and 

 others, the descriptions so incomplete, and the representations so coarse, that I have 

 hardly ever referred to it without disappointment, still more increased by the evidence 

 that its otherwise rich contents must thus, for the most part, for ever remain unavail- 

 able .... Now, as it is essential for recognition that the microscopy and spiculation 

 of each sponge should accompany it, if not in illustration, at least in description, so it is 

 evident that in the absence of this alone, to say nothing of the shortcomings of the 

 publication generally, the ' Spongiaires de la Mer Caraibe ' must for ever remain a 

 kind of ' Eldorado,' in which there are a number of good things, but no one can get 

 at them " 1 . 



Duchassaing and Michelotti describe nineteen species of Chalininse all under the 

 generic name Tuba, and it is very probable that one or two other species described by 

 them also belong to this group. They have since published (in 1870) a pamphlet 

 entitled ' Revue des Zoophytes et des Spongiaires des Antilles ; ' but this work 1 have, 

 unfortunately, not been able to obtain. 



Professor Oscar Schmidt, in his work on" the Atlantic sponges, retains the generic 

 name "Tuba" for Tuba plicifera, D. & M. (? Lamarck), which he considers a true 

 horny sponge ; but the majority of Duchassaing and Michelotti' s remaining species of 

 Tuba are referred by him to a single species of his own genus Siphonochalina, to which 

 species he gives the unnecessarily new name of Siphonochalina papyracea. For Tuba 

 armigera, D. & M., Schmidt founds the new genus Cladochalina 2 . 



It is doubtful whether Professor Hyatt's work on the North-American Porferae ought 

 to have been included in the above list at all, as hardly any direct reference is made to 

 the Chalininee, and no species are described ; but it contains much information with 

 regard to the external conditions under which horny-fibred sponges flourish. 



Finally Mr. Carter, in his paper on " Sponges from the West Indies and Acapulco," 

 criticises, as we have seen above, Duchassaing and Michelotti's work, and records a 

 number of species of sponges, amongst which a new species of West-Indian Chalininse, 

 viz. Siphonochalina (Patuloscula) procumbens, is described, and six old species are 

 identified and more or less fully dealt with. 



The species of Chalininse which I propose to describe in the present paper are 

 especially interesting from two points of view : — (1) they afford excellent illustrations of 

 the great variability in external form to which species of sponges living in shallow, or 

 comparatively shallow, water are subject ; and (2) they illustrate in a very striking 

 way the manner in which the siliceous spicules gradually degenerate and ultimately 

 completely vanish as the horny skeleton becomes more and more strongly developed. 



1 Loc. cit pp. 267, 268. 

 3 Loc. cit. p. 35. 



