Report on the zoological collections made in the Indo-Pacific Ocean ...

;366SPONGIIDA.BYSTUART 0. EIDLET.The published information relating to the marine Sponges ofAustralia is very limited, both as compared -with that relating toother groups of the Animal Kingdom, and as compared with theattention which has been paid to them by collectors. Large quantitiesof Sponges have been sent to England from this coast, and thenational collection of France possesses a large number evidently ofsimilar origin : but notwithstanding this fact, the number of intelligiblydescribed species is surprisingly small. Dr. Bowerbank,who obtained very large supplies of material, chiefly from S.W.Australia, only described* 14 species which may be said to haveprobablj^ come from this continent ; these are chiefly Silicea.Mr. Carter has described f 8 species from Bass's Straits, and somo25 from other localities (almost entirely southern and southwestern);of these 33, about one half are Silicea, and most of theremainder are Ceratosa. ' Prof. Hackel J: describes 16 species ofCalcarea from the south and east coasts; A. Hyatt § records 8Ceratosa from South and East Australia ; Prof. Selenka |!shortlydescribes and figures 5 Sponges from Melbourne and Bass's Straitsand W. Marshall 5[, Gray**, and some other writers add a fewspecies to the list; Polejaeffff adds 11 Calcarea to the fauna.Dr. Gray describes a remarkable form, Xenosponr/in , from TorresStraits, the only Siliceous species which I can find hitherto describedas definitely obtained from jS'orth Australia.The older writers by no means neglected the Sponges of Australia ;and in particular Lamarck J J described 53 species from "MorsAustrales," collected by Messrs. Peron and Lesueur, of which, aswe shall see below, there is considerable reason to believe thatmany were obtained off the more northern parts of the continent ; afew are certainly from the south (King Island and Francis andKang iroo Islands). There is, however, the very serious difficultyconnected with these descriptions of Lamarck that they are ex-* Chiefly in Proc, Zool. Soc. 1872-76.t In Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1873-84. J Die Kalkschwamme.§ Mem. Bost. Soc. ii. ||Zeitsch. wiss. Zool. xvii.% Zeit.sch. wiss. Zool. xxxv.** Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. (4) vi. ; Proc. Zool. Soc. 18G9.tt Zoology H.M.S. Challenger,' part xxiv.'II Ann. Mils. Hist. Nat. xx. (besides an uncertain number, as Alcyo7iia, inM6m. Mus. Nat. Hist. i.).