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XXVII. — Notes on Irish Sponges, Part I. — A List of the Species. 

 By Edward Perceval Wright, M. D., F. L. S., Professor of Zo- 

 ology, Trinity College, Dublin. 



[Read February 24, 1868.] 



In June, 1858, when engaged with Professor J. Eeay Greene of Cork 

 in investigating the marine zoology of the south and south-west coasts 

 of Ireland, my attention was attracted by the large number of sponges 

 met with while dredging in the bays of Castletownsend, Crook- 

 haven, and Bantry. The only work at that time which described the 

 species of British sponges was that by the late Dr. Johnson ; but the 

 zoologist was led to expect the publication each year of a work on 

 sponges by Dr. Bowerbank ; which, naming the species, from more 

 fixed and better marked characters than those of colour and external 

 form, would greatly facilitate the study of this order. While thus 

 waiting, no opportunity was neglected of studying the characters of 

 our Irish Sponges, and a series of dredgings was made in Bantry ^and 

 Ventry Bays, along the coast at Connemara — the rich collecting ground 

 of M'Calla and Dr. Parran — and around the Arran Islands : during 

 which I became more and more persuaded of the extreme uncertainty, 

 nay, in some cases, impossibility, of naming the species, even from 

 fresh specimens, without an examination by means of, often, very high 

 powers of the microscope. During 1862 Professor Oscar Schmidt's 

 work on the Sponges of the Adriatic Sea was published. This con- 

 tains very many of our Irish sponges — very often not only the same 

 genera, but the same species. During 1865 and 1866, with the excep- 

 tion of dredging excursions to Malahide, a fertile field in spring time for 

 marine sponges, annelids, and nudibranchiate mollusca, I did little 

 more than read up the now rapidly increasing literature of the subject. 

 Just as I was leaving for a short trip to the Indian Ocean Dr. Bowerbank's 

 monograph made its appearance, and on my return I resolved to work up 

 the species of sponges met with in this country. There are in my own col- 

 lection many species not yet investigated, and several probably new ; but 

 previously to describing these I have thought it advisable to examine the 

 collections of Irish sponges in the Museums of the Boyal Dublin Society, 

 Trinity College, and Belfast, and determining when possible, by my own 

 examination of the specimens, what species were to be met with in 

 these collections. The series of specimens in the first named museum 

 was apparently almost altogether collected by M'Calla, though I doubt 

 not but that the majority of these species were named by Prof. Scouler. 

 In some cases, either from the falling off and accidental misplacement 

 of labels, and in others because certain characteristics of the species 

 were not at the time properly known, I have found mistakes in the 

 nomenclature, but these were of small consequence, and detracted in 

 no way from the value of this collection. The few specimens in the 

 College museum were unnamed, but had the localities generally affixed. 



. R. I. A. PROC VOL. X. 2H 



