ZOOLOGICAL RESULTS OF A TOUR IN THE FAR EAST. 
SPONGES. 
By N. Annandale, D.Sc, F.A.S.B. {Zoological Survey of India). 
Plate II, figs. 3. 5 ; Plate IX. 
I. TWO MARINE SPONGES FROM A CREEK IN THE MALAY 
PENINSULA. 
The two sponges discussed in this note were found growing on the wooden piers 
of a landing stage at Port Weld in Perak on the east coast of the Malay Peninsula. 
This place is situated some miles up a narrow creek that opens into the Straits of 
Malacca, but, so far as I could learn, the water remains quite or almost salt at all 
seasons and at all states of the tide. The chief biological interest of the sponges lies 
not in their precise locality but in the fact that they grew high up on the piers imme- 
diately below high-tide level and were, therefore, exposed daily for considerable 
periods to the air and to the heat of a tropical sun. Moreover, the water which 
covered them at high tide was full of finely divided silt. 
The two species belong to two different genera and families of the Monaxonel- 
lida, one to the genus Reniera of the family Haploscleridae, the other to the pecu- 
liar and somewhat anomalous genus Amorphinopsis, which is assigned provisionally 
to the Axinellidae. 
The Reniera is a well-known species {R. implexa, Ridley & Dendy) of very wide 
bathymetric range in the warmer seas, while the Amorphinopsis seems to be no more 
than a phase or variety of a species {A . excavans, Carter) of which two other forms 
remarkably different in external structure have already been described from the 
eastern side of the Bay of Bengal. 
The most interesting feature of the bionomics of these two sponges is the diver- 
gence of the means whereby they are able to exist in the peculiar circumstances in 
which they were found at Port Weld. R. implexa is remarkable in its genus in that 
the sponge forms masses of more or less finger-shaped and at least partially hollow 
processes each of which is provided with a large and gaping osculum. Indeed, this is 
its most constant specific character, for its spicules, which are of one kind only, vary 
considerably in size and proportions in different specimens. The sponge is thus un- 
usually cavernous and is able to retain a considerable amount of water in its interior. 
Were it not for the fact that the species has been found not only in rock-pools and 
on the walls of a harbour but also in the deep sea, this structural peculiarity might 
be taken as an adaptation to enable it to resist external desiccation. Possibly it may 
be correlated with life in muddy water, and even if it has not been evolved in direct 
