818 DR. G. J. HINDE ON RECEPTACULITID2. 
Dr. Bowerbank’s paper, states that there can be no doubt that 
S. tessellatus is the calcareous skeleton of a spongiform body, and 
that Ischadites is of similar origin. In 1850-56 the brothers Sand- 
berger * figured two specimens from Vilmar and referred them to 
the proboscis of a crinoid. 
Hitherto only the characters of the outer surface of the fossil 
had been known; but in 18617 Mr. W. Pengelly described the 
interior of a cup-shaped specimen as “ divided into a network of 
quadrilateral meshes by the interlacing of what may be termed 
horizontal ribs, the primary extending from the bottom to the top of 
the cup, and secondary: springing from various heights in the sides 
or wall.” Though Mr. Pengelly did not recognize the spicular cha- 
racter of the ridges or ribs, he believed the organism to be a sponge, 
and gave it the name of Spherospongza tessellata. In the same year 
(1861) the late Mr. J. W. Salter +, in the course of some remarks on 
Ampluspongia, referred to the great Spheronites pomum (=S. tes- 
sellatus, Phill.) from the Devonian rocks, as a sponge allied to 
Grantia, and he also proposed the term Spherospongia for the Deyo- 
nian species. He adds that the Caradoc fossil is of the same genus. 
No further reference to or description of this Caradoc fossil, thus 
stated to be congeneric with S. tessellatus, Phill., is given, nor need 
I further refer to it here beyond stating that it appears to be a fossil 
which has been named later Spherospongia hospitalis, Salt., and that 
it has neither generic nor family characters in common with the 
species, which, alike by Salter and Pengelly, is put forward as the 
type of the genus. In order to determine, if possible, the question 
of priority, as both the references to the name were published in the 
same year, I inquired of Mr. Pengelly, who informed me that he 
could not be certain after such a long interval of time, but he 
thought it probable that the name was suggested to him by his friend 
Mr. Salter. As, however, the interior characters of the fossil were 
first described and figured by Mr. Pengelly, and the generic name 
definitely applied to this species, it seems to me only just, in the 
absence of decisive evidence as to the priority of publication, that 
he should be regarded as its author, even though Mr. Salter may 
have suggested the appellation to him, and this course is further te 
be recommended on the ground that Salter does not appear to have 
had any clear ideas of the structure of the type species, since he 
afterwards included in the genus Spherospongia a variety of forms 
which have no relation whatever with the type species. Whether, 
however, Pengelly or Salter be regarded as the author of the term, 
there is no doubt ot the fact that S. tessellatus, Phill., is the typical 
species, and therefore the doubtiul forms afterwards placed in the 
genus by Salter and other authors have no claim to remain in it. 
Kayser § refers the S. tessellatus, Phill., to Billings’s genus Pasceolus, 
* Die Verstemerungen des rheinischen Schichtensystems in Nassau, pp. 384, 
<a 
e 
Geologist, vol. iv. p. 340, pl. v. 
Mem. Geol. Survey, ‘‘ Geol. of Edinburgh,” p. 136. 
+ 
+ 
§ Zeitschr, d. deutsch. geol. Gesellsch. 1875, p. 780, t. 20. 
g 
