BRITISH SPONGES. 



1. TETHEA, Lamarck. 



Tetiia or Tethya, Lam. Aiiim. s. Vert. ii. 384 : Gray, Br. PL i. 

 361 : Flem. Brit. Anim. 519 : ScHW. Beobacht. vii. and Ilandb, 

 422. — Les Thethyes, Cuv. Reg. Anim. iii. 321 — Tethium, Blainv. 

 Man. 544. 



Character. Sponge tuberous, suhorhicular, solid and com- 

 pact, invested tvith a distinct rind or skin, the interior sar- 

 coid, loaded with siliceous crystalline spicula collected into 

 bundles and radiating from a more compact nucleus to the 

 circumference. Marine, 



A distinct and well-characterized genus, but not so happily 

 named, for although the Tetie of Donati is one of its species, 

 the Tetliea of Pliny appears to have been a mollusk resembling 

 the oyster. " Lateris dolores leniunt hippocampi tosti sumti, 

 tetlieaque similis ostreo in cibo sumta." Hist. Nat. lib. xxxii, 

 cap. 30. Moreover, Bohatsch had given the name Tethyum 

 to the singular naked mollusk which Linnaeus registered in the 

 Systema under the name of Tethis ; while in the classification 

 of the TuNiCATA by Savigny, the Tethyce is a family of that 

 group of animals. 



