ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
321 
Oscarella was folded in a complex manner witliin the body of the parent, 
this is borne out by Sollas’, preparations, and by others which Lenden- 
feld and Bohmig have made. He has some other crows to pick with 
Heider, but they are less important. 
Monograph of French Sponges.* — M. E. Topsent calls attention to 
the fact that, excepting Barrois, Delage, and a few others, French 
zoologists have not done their duty in regard to Sponges. From 1810- 
1870 almost nothing was done. Thus patriotism has abetted his mono- 
graph. The present part deals with the Tetractinellidae. He describes 
the complicated skeleton, the highly differentiated and eminently con- 
tractile ectosome, the mesoderm with all its division of labour, and the 
canalicular system. Then lie describes twenty-five French species, 
among which there is but one Lithistid — Desmanthus incrustans Tops. 
Non-calcareous Sponges of Port Phillip Heads.f — Prof. A. Dendy 
has published the first part of a catalogue of the non-calcareous sponges 
collected by Mr. Bracebridge Wilson in the neighbourhood of Port 
Phillip Heads. It must not, however, be thought to pretend to complete- 
ness, as a very large number of small specimens as yet remain entirely 
unexamined. The extent of the collection may be imagined from the 
fact that the non-calcareous sponges are contained in upwards of 900 
large Mason jars. Prof. Dendy has had the advantage of being able to 
study fragments of a very large number of the types of the late Mr. 
H. J. Carter’s Australian Sponges. He finds that the collection contains 
a very large number of duplicates, there being in some cases two or three 
dozen jars of the same species. This is due to the fact that the species 
are very difficult to distinguish by external characters alone, owing to 
their variability in form and sometimes also in colour. 
The present instalment contains only the families Homorrhaphidae 
and Heterorrhaphidae of the order Monaxonida. Although the author 
is aware that considerable modification will doubtless have to be made 
in the classification of the Monaxonida as proposed by Mr. Ridley and 
himself in their £ Challenger ’ report, he adheres for the present to 
the original scheme. As might be expected from the extent of the 
collection, the proportion of new species is large. In the present con- 
tribution, out of a total of 37 species 17 are described as new. There is 
only one new genus, and that receives the name of StylotricJiophora 
(S. rubra sp. n.) ; it is perhaps allied to Marshall’s Phoriospongia. 
Protozoa. 
Some new Protozoa.^ — Prof. L. Maggi describes Amoeba heteropoda, 
with different kinds of pseudopodia ; Amoeba hyalina, peculiarly hyaline ; 
Difflugia polycroma , most diversely coloured ; Monas nephrodes , a kidney- 
shaped Flagellate. 
Geographical Distribution of Fresh-water Protozoa.§ — Herr W. 
Schewiakoff observed a large number of Protozoa in a journey through a 
* Arch. Zool. Exper., ii. (1894) pp. 259-400 (6 pis.). 
t Proc. Roy. Soc. Victoria, 1895, pp. 232-60. 
t Rend. R. 1st. Lombardo, xxvi. (1893) p. 354. 
§ Mem. Acad. Imp. Sci. St. Petersburg, xli. No. 8 (1894) iv. and 201 pp. See 
Zool. Centralbl., i. pp. 813-5. 
1895 
Y 
