262 AN HOUR AMONG THE TORBAY SPONGES. 



pits sunk in the soil ; and, as before, a transparent 

 web is spread over the whole, which is forced up by 

 projecting glass rods ; these are not pointed, but blunt, 

 as if abruptly cut off. 



From one and another of the pits, a round bladder 

 is seen pushing out, which gradually lengthens till 

 it becomes elliptical. It is formed of a film of the 

 clearest jelly, excessively subtile, yet tenacious, with a 

 yellowish coat of granules spreading irregularly over 

 it. Orifices are now seen forming in the rounded tip 

 of the bladder; the origination and enlargement of 

 which are so very gradual as to defy detection, except 

 by marking stages of progress. The number of these 

 orifices varies up to half-a-dozen, as do their size and 

 position, both which are quite irregular : they are, 

 however, invariably situate at the extremity of the 

 bladder. They have always a well-defined outline, 

 which is rounded in every part, except where two 

 contiguous ones are divided by a slender thread of the 

 common membrane, in which case the two form the 

 halves of a circular or ovate figure. Slowly and im- 

 perceptibly they are seen to change their size, aug- 

 menting or diminishing ; sometimes a minute orifice 

 appears at the margin of a large one, and increases at 

 the expense of the older, until the dividing film is re- 

 duced to a thread stretching across, like a narrow 

 causeway across a lake. Now and then, from some 

 cause inappreciable by the observer, the whole bladder 

 will wrinkle, and partially collapse into a slender 



