98 



ACCOUNT OF BRITISH SPONGES. 



radiated spines are observable. This circum- 

 stance might favour an opinion, that the present 

 subject is only a variety of Spongia botryoides. 

 Mr Ellis, who first discovered that species, remarks^ 

 that when that sponge is examined under a mi» 

 croscope, the whole surface is observed to be co- 

 vered with triradiated spiculae. I could not dis- 

 cover any such superficial spines in Spongia com- 

 plicata ; and those triradiated spines which were 

 observed, are not a quarter so large as those be- 

 longing to botryoides. It must be confessed, that 

 I have never been able to procure botryoides, al- 

 though I am in possession of its triradiated spi- 

 culae, originally sent to me by my late worthy 

 friend Mr Boys, for the minute Asterias figured 

 by Walker. If, however, an opinion may be 

 formed from the representation of botryoides in 

 Ellis's Zoophytes, there appears to be a very con- 

 siderable distinction between the two species : that 

 is a cluster of little oval figures occasionally 

 branched, but all its parts retaining an ovate form, 

 and nothing either in description or figure, repre- 

 sents the complicated cylindrical, and frequently 

 inosculating tubes which characterise complicata. 



This elegant little sponge was found in Zetland 

 by Mr Fleming, adhering to fuci, to whom I am 

 under obligations for a clustered specimen, con- 

 taining innumerable principal stalks, all more or 

 less uniting in the manner the two here selected 

 are represented. 



