SPOXGES FROM THE MERGUI ARCHIPELAGO. 



75 



where the subglobular or slightly elliptical head is placed, about 

 153 by 5-6000ths inch in its greatest diameters ; shaft a little 

 thicker than the head ; 2, flesh-spicule a spinispirula varying 

 greatly in length and thickness, the largest about 6-6000ths inch 

 long with 6 bends, the rest so short as to appear like the longer 

 ones broken up. Both forms are equally abundant, the latter 

 scattered among the former, but chiefly found congregated near 

 the surface. Size of entire specimen 4| inches long, by 2\ broad 

 in its horizontal diameter, with a height of about 2| inches. 



Sab. Growing upon shell-detritus which has become incorpo- 

 rated with its base. 



Loc. King Island. 



Obs. I first observed this sponge (to which I have already 

 alluded, I. c.) in the Bowerbank Collection, where its label bore the 

 words " Trincomalee, Johnston ; " the Bowerbankian specimen 

 only differs in the mammillary processes being larger and more 

 agglomerated or proliferous. Having thus met with a second 

 specimen, viz. on the coast of Burmah, I now for the first 

 time name and describe it. 



Spirastrella ctxctatrix, Schmidt, Spong. Kuste Algier, 

 1868, p. 17, Taf. 3. fig. 8. 



This specimen grows over the surface of a piece of rock to the 

 extent of several square inches in the form of a thin, incrustiug 

 laver about 1-lSth inch thick with well-defined round margin. 

 Consistence soft. Colour pinkish or lilac. Surface even. Struc- 

 ture throughout compact, but by no means corticate as Schmidt's 

 specimen would appear to have been, although the flesh-spicules 

 (spinispirula?) are chiefly congregated on the surface, as in most 

 sponges where they exist. 



Eccozloxida, Carter, 1879. 



u Excavating Sponges," Journ. Roy. Microscopic. Society, vol. xi. 

 p. 496. 



^N'o. 12 specimen is a portion of old coral riddled throughout 

 with cancellous excavations, inhabited as usual by several kinds 

 of sponges, as testified by a fragment when boiled in nitric acid, 

 whose residue when mounted presents the spiculations of : — ■ 

 Cliona ensifera, Sollas ; Samus anonyma, Gray ; S. simplex, Carter; 

 Cliona sp. ?, pin-like spicules and little globular stellates ; Cliona 



