THE FISHERY RESOURCES OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: 

 11. SPONGES AND SPONGE FISHERIES. 



By Alvin Sbale. 

 {From the Section of Fisheries, Biological Laboratory, Bureau of Science.) 



IXTRODUCTIOX. 



The past year has marked the opening of the Philippine sponge 

 fisheries from a commercial standpoint, some thirty thousand sponges 

 having been shipped from the Islands during the year. The greater 

 part of these were sold in Singapore for export to London. Philippine 

 sponges are new products to the trade and many of them are slightly 

 different from those usually handled and therefore the prices obtained 

 varied greatly, in some instances, no doubt, being below the real value 

 of the export. 



Specimens of all the different varieties of Philippine sponges at 

 present obtainable were taken to the United States and shown to Dr. 

 H. F. Jloore, of the United States Bureau of Fisheries. They were 

 compared mth specimens from Florida, Cuba, and the Mediterranean. 

 After this the same specimens were taken to soiiie of the largest whole- 

 sale sponge dealers in Xew York and San Francisco, who examined them 

 with great interest, suggested commercial names for those new to the 

 trade, and so far as possible, gave quotations of prices of sponges of the 

 latter class among the samples. The facts I have so far collected are 



given below. 



SPONGES IN GENERAL. 



A sponge when in its native state (see PL I) closely resembles a boiled 

 plum pudding covered by a thin, dark skin. It is quite different in 

 appearance from the ordinary sponge of commerce which is merely the 

 bleached skeleton of the animal. 



Sponges are usually classed by themselves in the faunal subkingdom 

 Porifera; most of the sponges belong to the division Keratosa; the great 

 majority of the Philippine forms to the genus Euspongia."- 



^ It is intended in a later paper to give a small check list with the scientific 

 names of all the Philippine sponges. 



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