HALICHONDRIA. 93 



Faun. 209. Jameson in Wern. Mem. i. 562. Munlayu in Ibid. 



ii. 80. Bosc, Vers, iii. 172. Stew. Elem. ii. 434. Lam. Anim. 



s. Vert. ii. 379 ; and ii. 569, 2de edit. Lamour. Cor. Flex. 75. 



Corall. 181. Parkins. Oryctology, 46. Starh, Elem. ii. 424. 

 Spongia bacillaris, Lin. Syst. 1299. Mull. Zool. Dan. prod. 256. 



Turt. Gmel. iv. 659. Lamour. Cor. Flex. 83. Comll. 186. 



Bosc, Vers, iii. 171. Parkins. Oryct. 48. 

 Spongia oculata, Esper, Spong. tab. 1, fig. 1, 2. 

 Manon oculatum, Schweig. Handb. 422. 

 Tupha palmata. Gray, Brit. PL i. 355 

 Halichondria palmata, Flem. Brit. Anim. 523. Johnston in Trans. 



Newc. See. ii. 269. Bellamy's South Devon, 268. 

 Halispongia palmata, Blainv. Actinol. 533, pi. 93, fig. 4. 



Hab. In deep water on different parts of the coast from 

 Devon to Zetland, Fleming. Found on the sea beach at Bright- 

 helmstone m Sussex, Ellis. Orkney and Shetland Islands, Jame- 

 son. Coast of Devon, rare, Montagu. Near Holy Island, 

 and on some parts of the coast of Berwickshire, G. J. 



Sponge plant-like, rising from a spreading base to the height 

 of occasionally nearly two feet, variously branched, often in a 

 somewhat palmate manner, the branches erect, about an inch in 

 breadth, thickish, compressed, often inosculating and inarch- 

 ing, of a straw-yellow colour, roughish to the feel, and rather 

 unyielding when dried : texture fibro-reticulate, elastic, the fi- 

 bres coarse, radiating upwards and towards the surface, forming 

 an irregular net-work with angular meshes : the oscula round, 

 numerous, scattered over both sides, with their margins level or 

 slightly raised. The fibre is smooth, but of an unequal thick- 

 ness, being generally enlarged at the points of anastomosis. 

 The spicula are imbedded in it, mostly laid in parallelism, and 

 a few protrude their points at irregular intervals : they are ra- 

 ther short, more or less curved, tapered to an acute point at each 

 extremity, but, being easily broken, many of them appear to be 

 awl-shaped when freed from their matrix. 



This is the largest and the finest of British Sponges. It is 



