236 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



and description of each. I am really very much indebted to 

 Dr Fleming for his kind assistance, and sincerely wish I 

 conld in conscience support his Cydonium to the exclusion 

 of Geodia. Present my respects to him." In February 

 1856, Dr Bowerbank says, " I have just received such a 

 glorious box of sponges from Western Australia, radiant 

 with colour, purple, rose, cream, and all sorts of tints, and 

 full of fleshy matter. There are forty-four grand specimens, 

 some eighteen inches high, but when shall I get to work on 

 them ! I am overwhelmed with material, having received 

 advice of another large collection of sponges and corals from 

 Madeira, which are on their way. I think I must take 

 Finsbury Square by-and-by, or I shall have no chance of 

 exhibiting them. I am glad you and I agree so well re- 

 garding the arrangement of the Spongiadce. It is quite 

 delightful to have some one like yourself to write to about 

 them, all the rest of the world seem to dread them as much 

 as they do human sponges. I am working nightly for four 

 or five hours at them, but seem to make slow progress ; but 

 the labour is most delightful to me, and every day brings 

 some new fact before my eyes. I have now named and 

 ready for drawing above a hundred different forms of 

 spicula, and I am working hard to get them ready for a paper 

 for the Royal Society, if possible, this season. In the spring 

 I shall go to Tenby, and have two or three weeks' work at 

 the living specimens, and work out all my suspicions and 

 beliefs regarding them." 



The result of this visit to Tenby was stated in a paper 

 read at a meeting of the British Association in 1856, " On 

 the Vital Powers of the Spongiadce," in which Dr Bower- 

 banks proved by observations made on Eymeniacidon carun- 

 cula, that this sponge possessed the power of expanding and 

 contracting the oscula at pleasure while in a living condi- 

 tion, but he could not at that time satisfactorily determine 

 the nature and powers of the imbibing pores, as these organs 

 could only be seen distinctly in operation in very young and 

 transparent specimens. These observations were followed 

 up by others on the fresh- water sponge, Spongilla fluviatilis ; 

 and in another communication at a meeting of the British 



