PLATE XCI. 335 



aspiculous. Skeleton. — Spicula equi-angulated and 

 rectangulated, triradiate, small and very numerous ; 

 radii slender and unequal in length, and distorted. 



Colour. — Cream-wliite, alive and dead. 



Habitat. — Brighton Aquarium ; Henry Lee, Esq. 



Examined. — In the dried state. 



I am indebted to my friend, Mr. Henry Lee, for my 

 knowledge of this species. He found it growing on 

 the artificial rock work in the tanks of the Brighton 

 Aquarium. He sent me six specimens of it ; three in 

 the young condition and three in the adult state. 

 The three young ones were in progressive stages of 

 development. The first and second of them were 

 each a congeries of rather long and slender tubuli, 

 without any solid basal mass, very closely resembling- 

 large straggling specimens of Leucosolenia hotryoides. 

 These tubuli are longer, but less in diameter than 

 those of the larger description of cloacal organs on the 

 adult sponges, but they are much larger in every 

 respect than the numerous minute cloacge, which are so 

 numerous on the surface of the fully-developed 

 sponges. The third one of the young specimens was 

 especially interesting as it formed a complete struc- 

 tural Hnk between the first two young specimens and 

 the fully-developed ones ; there being in this case a 

 thin, solid, basal stratum profusely furnished on its 

 upper surface with the minute cloacas and having also 

 six of the large cloacal organs projected from its 

 surface. 



My friend, in his note to me in treating of these 

 young specimens and their cloacal organs, and espe- 

 cially of the third one, writes, " When the nodular 

 mass is removed from the water, hoivever gently, they 

 sink down and become flaccid and do not stand out 

 from the body of the sponge as they do in life." In 

 the stage of development of the third of the young- 

 sponges there appears to be more of the large descrip- 

 tion of cloacal organs than there usually are on the 

 large and fully-developed specimens. 



