S±» OXGES FEOM THE MERGE! ARCHIPELAGO. 



71 



Eeniera craterieormis, Carter, Ann. Sf Mag. Nat. Hist. 5th 

 ser. vol. x. p. 115 (1882), where for " Carkosa " read " Crassa." 



This species comes under the division " Crassa," chiefly so 

 called from the greater size of the spicules, which in this 

 instance are 85 by 6-6000ths inch in their greatest dimensions. 

 Like all the other species, it is deeply excavated, aud measures 

 outside 14| inches high by 10 and 7 horizontally, so that it is 

 somewhat compressed, and is also bent upon itself in the direction 

 of the longest diameter ; while the excavation, the mouth of 

 which is an elongated oval, measuring in its long and short 

 diameters 9 and 2 inches respectively, is 9 inches deep. Like 

 the large specimen in the British Museum, which exceeds the 

 present in size, it is covered outside by a proliferous growth of 

 ragged ridges and pyramidal processes, which are largest at the 

 base and gradually diminish in size upwards until they approach 

 the margin of the mouth, where they disappear altogether, leaving 

 the latter with a plain, irregularly undulating, thin edge. In 

 the large specimen in the British Museum most of these 

 processes are themselves centrally excavated, forming " little 

 craters." The specimen from Elphinstone Island, which was 

 sessile, is very remarkable from its great size, good state of 

 preservation, and great cleanness, which renders it as beautiful as 

 it is valuable in an instructive point of view. 



Fibularia ramosa, Carter, Ann. Sf Mag. Nat. Hist. 5th ser. 

 vol. ix. p. 283 (1882). (Plate VII. tigs. 1-3.) 



If the abundance of this species in the Collection is any 

 indication of its prevalence in the locality whence it came, it 

 must be very plentiful. There are eight specimens of it, all of 

 which are characterized by coarse, white, fibro-reticulate structure 

 covered with an extremely delicate, gauze-like, reticulate dermal 

 layer, and by the presence of the bihamate flesh-spicule which, in 

 addition to the skeletal acerate, gives the diagnostic spiculation. 

 One specimen, viz. No. 38, which appears to have grown upon a 

 layer of barnacles, and is about 4 inches in horizontal diatneter 

 with a uniform height of 1| inch, is composed of a reticulate mass of 

 hollow branches whose cavities open by large round vents on the 

 surface. These characters are better developed in Nos. 50 and 

 57, where the form is preserved by the intermixture of a tough, 

 filiform, branched Fucus that pervades the whole structure and 



