676 
ZOOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 
united in a very characteristic manner with the tissue of the 
latter. No one can doubt but they form an organic whole j 
and a careful examination of the cortical layer, presumed by 
Dr. Bowerbank to be a cloacal system, proves incontrovertibly 
that it consists of parasitic polyps, and is no part of the sponge. 
Prof. Max Schultze establishes (/. c. p. 158) a family, I/OjoAo- 
spongicB, to contain the two genera, 1. Hyalonema (Gray), from 
Japan, and, 2. Euplectella (Owen), from the Philippines. Prof. 
Ehrenberg {1. c.) considers that the Portuguese Hyalonema is 
not a polyp, but a sponge ; but we cannot with certainty gather 
from his paper whether he with Dr. Bowerbank believes the 
polyp- structures to be but efferent openings of the sponge, or 
whether he regards them as parasitic on the sponge. He says, 
*^Hhe comparison of the natural orifices in the corium with 
polyps would appear not to be very well founded. The observer 
has seen either parasitic polyps or the ordinary efferent openings 
in sponges. 
In two letters to Dr. J. E. Gray, Prof. Bocage (/. c.) expresses 
surprise at the arguments of Prof. Ehrenberg, and gives an ac- 
count of an excursion to Setubal, undertaken for the purpose of 
obtaining all particulars about the Portuguese Hyalonema on the 
spot. Twelve specimens in all have been taken by fishers for 
sharks in the deep-sea valley oft‘ Setubal, but none of these have 
been examined in a living state. Prof. Bocage inclines with Dr. 
J. E. Gray to believe that the long siliceous spicules are but the 
axis of a coral. 
Dr. Bowerbank (/. c.) suggests that H. lusitanicum will 
eventually prove to be the same species as H. mirabile, and 
thinks that Prof. Bocage^s descriptions of the Portuguese speci- 
mens are strongly in favour of their spongeous nature. Believing 
Hyalonema to be a sponge, without any parasitic polyps, he de- 
scribes in great detail H. mirahiley giving full particulars of 
what the author calls the great cloacal organ and its oscula,^^ 
and describing a series of contractile membranes for the open- 
ing and closing of the inner and outer diaphragms of the oscula. 
He finds a parallel to the cloacal system in Hyalonema in that 
met with in the British genus Cicocalypta. 
Euplectella. Semper (/. c.) tells of a dredging- voyage which he made to 
Bohol in 1864, to look for specimens of this sponge. The fishermen asserted 
they had found it in the channel between Bohol and Cebri ; but he looked and 
dredged for them in vain. In this paper Semper describes, under the name 
of JEya spongiophilaj sp. n., the little crustacean met with so frequently in 
the middle of the Euplectella. 
Dr. Bowerbank (1. c.) gives a very detailed description of the skeleton of 
Euplectella speciosa. He regards the species figured by Quoy and Gaimard, 
and described by Owen, as referable to De Blainville’s genus 'Alcyoncellum. 
Dr. J. E. Gray (Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. xix. 1867, p. 44) describes 
some very young specimens of Euplectella speciosa, and, in some further ob- 
