104 BRITISH SPONGES: 



Spoiigia crispata? Enper, iSpong. tab. 37, fig 1-3. 



Spongia liclieiiiformis, Lam. Aiiim. s. Vert. ii. 354 ; Sde edit. ii. 



543. Zamour. Cor. Flex. 22. Corall. 153., 

 Halichondria fniticosa, Fkm. Brit. Anim. 522. 



Hab. In deep water. By no means uncommon on the west- 

 ern coasts of England, especially those of Dorset and Devon, 

 Montagu. Cornwall, 3Ir Couch. 



" This sponge is extremely light and elegant in appearance 

 like a shrubby lichen : the fibres are very distant, so that a 

 large piece is, in a dry state, pervious to light : it is rather more 

 compact about the base, from whence it usually spreads into 

 large lobes, which frequently have the vertical fibres somewhat 

 radiating from the base, and the decussations more distant. 

 From the sinuous appearance of the larger specimens, it seems 

 to attach itself to the stalks of large fuci ; but as it inhabits the 

 deep amongst rocks, it has never fallen to my lot to procure a 

 living specimen. After violent storms, it is frequently ejected, 

 and then is sometimes at first brownish, but soon becomes w^hite 

 by the conjoined action of the sun, the air, and the water. In 

 this state, when all the animal gluten has been completely re- 

 moved, the fibres under a lens exhibit a silky or asbestine ap- 

 pearance, and seem to acquire a superior tenacity. The larger 

 pieces of six or seven inches in length, and half as much in 

 breadth, are rude, shapeless, and usually have the terminating fi- 

 bres worn away. It is in such older specimens that Balanus 

 spongia, described and figured in Testacea Britannica, makes 

 a lodgement. The fleshy or gelatinous substance which fills the 

 interstices of the ligamentous fibres of every sponge has not, 

 that I am aware of, been detected in this species ; from whence 

 we reasonably infer that it comes from the deep, and that, though 

 it may by some accident be removed from its natural fixed abode, 

 it is not ejected till it has lost much of its specific gravity by the 

 decomposition of the fleshy parts, which, from analogy, we may 



