236 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Aeademi/. 



recent years. One, dredged in the River Erne at Enniskillen, is merely a 

 small mass of gemmules held together by the remnants of the sponge of the 

 pre\ious year's growth. The other is a very fine cushion-like specimen, about 

 180 square mm. in extent, which was found growing at the base of an over- 

 hanging rock in the Eiver Tolka, near Ashtown, Co. Dublin. It was pale 

 yellow in colour, and the surface was slightly ridged. The whole sponge 

 was crowded with gemmules, and the characteristic large vesicular cells, 

 commonly called ' bubble cells," were present in great abundance. Another 

 large sponge growing within three or four yards of it looked exactly like it, 

 but was softer in te.xlure, and proved to be a perfectly typical Evhydatia 

 Jtuviatilis. A careful search was made along the rive*-, both at the time of 

 finding these sponges and in the following year, for further specimens of 

 £. Miilieri, but without success. E.fluciatUis is quite common in the river. 



The spicules of both the River Erne and the River Tolka specimens of 

 E. MitlUri are quite typical of the species ; in neither case could they be 

 confused with the spicules of any of the specimens of E. ftKriatUi* found in 

 this country, although the distinction usually made between the two species, 

 namely, that one possesses only smooth, the other spined as well as smooth 

 skt-' ~. can no longer be maintained. The megascleres of the 



E.J- . ..ud in the pond in the Zoolngical Gardens, Dublin, it is true, 



approach clueely to the comfspondiiig spicules of the Erne E. MitUeri, which 

 are rather slender, but the spicules of the former are longer. 



The presence of i lis in E. Mtdleri at once distinguishes it from 



the closely allied E.j.- ... .->. 



Sponges found in different parts of Ireland have been attributed to 

 E. Mulleri from time to time. Of Bowerbank's slides of Sponffilla Parjitti 

 (= E. MiiHrri), in the P.ritish Museum, his preparation made from one of 

 Dr. ISatlersby's specimens from the "Lake of Killarney " (12, p. 169, is 

 without gemmtiles, but the megnscleres appear to be undoubtedly those of 

 HeUromtiftnia Rtfderi, a species which is very common in the Middle Lake of 

 Killarney. Another of Bowerbank's preparations, labelled *' Sponyilla Parfitti, 

 Caragh Lake," is evidently Kphydatin MiilUri. It contains many gemmules 

 which possess very irregularly shaped amphidiscs. 



Judging from Hanitsch's figures of the skeleton-spicules of a sponge from 

 Lough Rea, Co. Galway (21, PI. 4, fig. 4 a, b), his specimens were not 

 E. JIulUri, but belonged to the peculiar race or variety of £. flutuitilis, 

 described on p. 232. Sponges recently collected in Lough Rea also belong to 

 that race. The same remark applies to the specimens named E. Jlulieri by 

 the present writer in the Report on the Sponges of the Clare Island Sarvey (41), 

 and fr-ui Lmiu'ii Gill .43*. 



