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PACIFIC SCIENCE, Vol. XI, April, 1957 
of Pearl Harbor. There were two subspherical 
specimens, human fist size, nearly black ex- 
teriorly but drab as to interior. The consis- 
tency was cartilaginous. The oscules were 
about 1.5 mm. in diameter. The surface re- 
vealed numerous pores 70 to 140 microns in 
diameter. The ectosome is a cortex 100 mi- 
crons and more in thickness. The endosome 
is vaguely radiate in architecture. The spicules 
are principally smooth oxeas, about 9 X 500 
microns, but there are scattered tetraxons with 
rays about 7 X 140 microns. There are four 
kinds of microsclere. There are microxeas 
about 3 X 50 microns, often bent, indicating 
that they may represent large asters with rays 
reduced in number to two. There are micro- 
tuberculate chiasters or tylasters about 17 mi- 
crons in diameter, with few rays, and others 
only 12 microns in diameter with many rays. 
Finally there are the peculiar aspidasters that 
characterize the genus Erylus. They are oval 
plates 3 microns thick and about 50 X 85 
microns in surface size, completely covered 
with tubercles about 2 microns high and 2 
microns in diameter. These plate-or-scale like 
spicules constitute a sort of dermal armour. 
They develop from asters, all of whose rays 
lie in a single plane. 
In 1904 and 1905 Alexander Agassiz, aboard 
the U. S. Fish Commission Steamer "Alba- 
tross,” collected in the Eastern Tropical Paci- 
fic. The vast numbers of sponges thus ac- 
quired are presumably in the collections of 
Harvard University at Cambridge, or in the 
U. S. National Museum. They were, almost 
immediately, made available for study by R. 
von Lendenfeld. In 1910 he published in the 
memoirs of the Museum of Comparative 
Zoology of Harvard a huge quarto volume on 
the family "Geodidae” (it should be Geo- 
diidae) and another nearly as large on the 
family "Erylidae.” In 1915 a massive two 
volume work appeared on the Hyalospongea 
thus collected. The volume on Geodiidae con- 
cerns only one certain genus, and scarcely a 
dozen valid species, which could be tho- 
roughly described in 20 or 30 pages. The 
volume on Erylidae concerns less than half a 
dozen certain species, which could be ap- 
propriately described and discussed in about 
a dozen such large pages. The volumes in 
question are masterpieces of verbosity. 
The scientists who travelled on the "Alba- 
tross” found no hyalosponges near Hawaii, 
nor any Geodias , but did find an Erylus. As was 
his custom, Lendenfeld made three species 
and two additional subspecies for it. Using 
his criteria, the specimen described above 
would be yet another species, and the next 
one collected in the future would be yet an- 
other. Lendenfeld used the names rotundus , 
caliculatus , and sollasii; the latter two of these 
names are here dropped in synonymy to 
rotundus (page 290), with some misgivings 
that all may possibly be synonyms of Erylus 
nobilis Thiele (1900: 48). Lendenfeld records 
his Erylus caliculatus from north of the Island 
of Hawaii, Erylus sollasii from south of Molo- 
kai, his Erylus rotundus from near Hawaii, and 
also from Hawaii and Molokai. 
(?) Leucosolenia vesicula (Haeckel) 
Dendy and Row 
Haeckel (1872: 41) described a remarkable 
sort of sponge, calling it first Ascetta vesicula , 
then later calling it Clistolynthus vesicula. He 
states that he found four specimens of it on 
floating Sargasso-weed, collected by Captain 
Halterman in the neighborhood of Honolulu. 
The weed was densely covered with hydroids 
and bryozoans. All four examples of vesicula 
were hollow balls with no trace of an oscule, 
total size 2 to 3 mm. in diameter. The only 
spicules present were sagittal triaxons with rays 
10 X 80 to 12 X 90 microns in dimensions. 
It seems highly probable that these were im- 
mediate post-fixation stages of some sponge 
that may have appeared quite different when 
adult-this could even have been a juvenile 
Leuconia or (more likely) a Leucetta. 
FRESHWATER SPONGES OF OAHU 
In April 1941 Professor Arthur Svihla of 
the University of Washington sent the author 
