28 
GUIDE TO THE CORAL GALLERY. 
High Case Fig. 8. 
Lower end of a spi- 
cule of the glass 
rope magnified. 
a, axial canals of 
five aborted rays. 
Case III. 3) comes from Japan. Specimens of the 
two species have been photographed together for 
comparison. 
The fine specimen of Walteria leuclcarti, from 
Sagami Bay, Japan (Fig. 9 ; and Case III. 3), 
consists of a long hollow thick-walled tube rising 
from a solid base, and with solid pinnate branches 
arising from the tube at right angles ; the oval 
sharp-edged openings in the wall of the tube are 
oscules. The little elevations on the surface of 
the branches are caused by a commensal zoophyte. 
Rliabdocalyptus victor (Fig. 10) and specimen in 
Case III. 3, from the same locality as the previous 
species, forms a deep thin-walled vase of felt-like 
texture. 
The beautiful Lace Sponge, Semferellci schultzei 
(specimens in Case III. 1, and Table Case 2b)', 
has a straight or curved conico-cylindrical body 
terminating below in a massive root-tuft. The 
surface shows a delicate gauze-like network, the 
dermal membrane (Fig. 11), and also long bands 
and patches of coarser pattern ; the latter are sieve- 
plates covering the oscules. In place of a simple 
central cavity with one terminal oscule and sieve- 
plate, as in Venus’ Flower-Basket, there is a main 
central cavity giving off lateral branching tubes, 
the surface-openings of which are covered with the 
sieve-plates ; accordingly currents enter the fine 
gauze-like areas and leave by the coarser sieve- 
plate areas. 
Hyalonema sieboldii, or the Class-rope Sponge 
(Figs. 8, 12) and specimen in Case III. 3, comes 
from Japan, closely allied species, however, being 
widely distributed. When the glass ropes (without 
the upper portion of the sponge) first arrived in 
Europe, they were supposed to be either artificial 
productions or the axial core of Gorgonid Corals. 
The twisted strand or glass rope is a root-tuft 
composed of immensely long spicules, which root 
the sponge in the mud, and which, at the upper 
end, project like a spike into the interior of the 
sponge-body. Some of the long spicules end in a 
toothed disk, and are provided along their length 
