Abstract
THIS important memoir is the first instalment of a general monograph of the rich Hexactinellid fauna of the Japanese seas, upon the study of which the author has been engaged for the last seven years, with the result of increasing very largely the list of these interesting and beautiful sponges known to occur in that part of the world. Four species of Euplectella, three of Regadrella and one of Walteria are here described in great detail, and all but two of them are species described and named by the author himself; either in previous publications or in this memoir for the first time. The part of the work, however, which above all claims the attention of the zoologist who is not specially interested in this group of animals, or in the faunistic problems which attach to them, is the detailed account of the histology and organisation of Euplectella marshalli (pp. 116–200). The author has had at his disposal a very abundant material of this sponge, which he was able to preserve by various methods directly after capture. As the result of his careful studies upon this valqable material, the author describes in these Hexactinellids a type of structure which is radically different in two main points from that of all other sponges, and in both respects probably to be regarded as more primitive.
Studies on the Hexactinellida.
Contribution 1. (Euplectelliæ). By Isao Iijima. Pp. 299; 14 plates. (Reprinted from the Journal of the College of Science, Imperial University, Tky, Japan, vol. xv. 1901.)
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MINCHIN, E. Studies on the Hexactinellida . Nature 64, 393–394 (1901). https://doi.org/10.1038/064393a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/064393a0
