PROCEEDINGS 



OP 



THE ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY 



PAPERS READ BEFORE THE ACADEMY 



EEPOET ON THE SPONGES COLLECTED OFF THE COAST OF 

 IRELAND BY THE DEEDGING EXPEDITIONS OF THE 

 EOYAL IRISH ACADEMY AND THE EOYAL DUBLIN 

 SOCIETY. 



By JANE STEPHENS, B.A., B.Sc. 



Plate I. 



Eead June 11. Published July 13. 1917. 



A SHORT account is given in the following paper of collections of sponges 

 obtained a good many years ago by the Eoyal Irish Academy and by the 

 Royal Dublin Society off the west and south-west coasts of Ireland. These 

 sponges were deposited in the National Museum, Dublin, where they have 

 since remained unnamed, with the exception of two or three, which were 

 referred to in the report on the marine sponges of the Clare Island Survey 

 (12), as they were the sole representatives of their species known within the 

 area of that survey. 



Excepting the first cruise of the " Porcupine " in the year 1S69, the 

 earliest attempts at deep-sea dredging off the west and south-west coasts of 

 Ireland were carried out by the Eoyal Irish Academy, which equipped three 

 dredging expeditions in the years 1885, 1886, and 18S8. Accounts of the 

 invertebrates then obtained, with the exception of the sponges, were published 

 in the Proceedings of the Academy (4 and 5). 



Later on, in the years 1890 and 1891, the Eoyal Dublin Society organized 

 a survey of the fishing grounds off the west coast of Ireland. In the course 

 of this survey large collections of invertebrates were made. A preliminary 

 list of the species was published in the report on the Survey (8), in which 

 mention was made of about half a dozen of the commonest sponges. 



K.I.A. PROC, VOL. XXXIV., SECT. 13. [A] 



