PLATE LXXIII. 199 



of the dermal membrane and also, tricurvato-acerate 

 ones, long, slender, and abruptly looped in tlie middle ; 

 terminal curves nearly obsolete, nearly straight. 



Colour. — Olive-green in the wet state, brown when 

 dried. 



Habitat. — Haaf Banks, Shetland ; seventy fathoms ; 

 Mr. Humphreys, Scarborough ; Mr. Peter, CuUen. 



Examined. — In the wet condition. 



I received two specimens of this sponge from the 

 Shetland fishermen through their agent Mr. Hum- 

 phreys. The largest specimen is seven and a quarter 

 inches high, but very narrow and unshapely in its form. 

 The basal portion of the sponge is very little larger 

 than the distal one. It is rather stout, but irregular 

 in its shape, but as the stem progresses upward, it 

 gradually becomes compressed ; the distal portions 

 expand laterally, and assume a thin and leaf -like form. 

 The whole of the branches are in nearly the same 

 plane. 



I have also received specimens of this species from 

 Scarborough, said to have been brought up by the 

 fishermen or trawlers on the Dogger Bank. They vary 

 in size and form considerably from the figured speci- 

 mens. One of them is seven inches in height, branch- 

 ing very irregularly, but terminating in three fan-like 

 flat branches, ajDproaching somewhat in form to the 

 smallest of the two-figured specimens. Others of them 

 were smaller, but all possessed more or less of the 

 general external characters. 



The reticulations of the skeleton are large and coarse, 

 and the fibre in some parts is constructed of more 

 spicula than can be readily counted, while in other 

 parts it consists of but one or two spicula cemented 

 together. The dermal membrane in all the specimens 

 has been nearly entirely destroyed, a few minute patches 

 of it only remaining, but on these small portions the 

 spicula peculiar to it are in a good state of preserva- 

 tion. In consequence of the very general absence of 

 the dermal tissue the natnre of the oscula cannot be 



