INTRODUCTION. VU 



Professor O. Sclimidt, wlien lie visited me to inspect 

 my collection of British sponges, very kindly presented 

 me witli 33 small portions of specimens of his Adriatic 

 sponges for examination and comparison with our 

 British species. Of the species presented to me there 

 were 6 of his genus Reniera, 3 of Esperia, 2 of Stel- 

 letta, 2 of Oacospongia, 2 of Clathria, 2 of Suberites, 

 and 2 of his Axinella. Of the rest there was one 

 specimen of each of the following genera : Spongelia, 

 Gumina, Hircinia, Taguillia, Aplysina, Sarcotragus, 

 Vioa, Tapiliato, Caminus, Spongia, Stegxella, Raspailia, 

 and Cribella. 



The whole of these genera were established by either 

 Nardo or Professor O. Schmidt. Of Nardo's species 

 Dr. Gray, in ' Proceedings ' of the Zoological Society 

 for 1867, page 495, justly observes, "almost all the 

 species mentioned as belonging to the genera are new 

 and not described in this paper (' Ausug aus einem 

 neuen der Spongiarien Isis,' 1833), so that it is impos- 

 sible to determine what they are except for such per- 

 sons as have specimens named by the Author." In 

 truth, Nardo's species described in Professor 0. 

 Schmidt's ' Die Spongien des Adriatischen Meere ' and 

 the two supplements may be considered rather as those 

 of Schmidt than oflSTardo. They may be conveniently 

 consulted by reference to Dr. Gray's paper in the 

 ' Proceedings ' of the Zoological Society for 1867, page 

 497. 



Dr. Schmidt does not found his genera and species 

 on any definite anatomical principle, and in many cases 

 they are so loosely constructed that the descriptions 

 would embrace almost an unlimited series of very dis- 

 crepant species. Thus in his description of Hircinia, 

 we have " sponge of a lax texture, skin less dense." 

 Of Dysidea, a remarkably distinct and well- characterised 

 sponge, by the peculiarities of its skeleton structure, 

 we have the following very indefinite generic character. 

 " Sponge massive, skeleton irregular, netted." This 

 loose mode of description may possibly serve the 



