30 POPULAR HISTORY OF THE AQUARIUM. 



Of all the varied forms of Sponge, or rather Sponge- 

 skeletons, with which we are acquainted, no one ap- 

 proaches in elegance of appearance, and delicate regularity 

 of texture, the unique specimen dragged up, on a hook, 

 among weeds by Mr. Cuming in the Philippine Islands. 

 Professor Owen has given it the name of 



^'EUPLECTELLA ASPERGILLUM,^^ 



Deriving the first name from words signifying ^' well 

 plaited,^' and the second, from a wonderful resemblance to 

 a well-known shell, commonly called the "Water-pot.''' 

 The shell, named AspergiUum, is a tube tapering at one 

 end, and having at the other end a disc with holes, like 

 the rose of a garden water-pot, and surrounded by a fringe 

 of small tubes. It is formed by an acephalous mollusc, 

 which, in its early stage, possesses the nuclei of a bivalve 

 shell, the edges of which increase in every direction so as 

 to form the tube spoken of, and in which these nuclei are 

 only seen afterwards, as forming a portion, looking as if 

 they were glued into its side. The Euplectella, which 

 measures eight inches in length, bears so near a resem- 

 blance in form to the shell, that Mr. Cuming imagined, on 

 first taking it, that he had found a wonderful new species 



