THE EUPLECTELLA, OR VENUs's SEA-BASKET. 19 



spicule, and its own mode of weaving its glass basket. 

 A well-defined species is here shown. As it resembles a 

 gourd rather than a horn in shape, it has received the 

 scientific name of Euplectella cucumer (Fig. 4). 



Different as it may be in outline, it still possesses the 

 perforated lid, the elaborate mesh-work of the body, and 

 the wisp of filmy glass threads at the bottom. 



In this species, perhaps more than any other, we 

 cannot but be struck with an uneasy sensation that cane- 

 seated chairs must in some mysterious way have derived 

 their origin from the Euplectella. Cane-seated chairs 

 were used by the Egyptians three thousand years ago, 

 their pattern being exactly like that of the chair on 

 which I am now sitting. The Euplectella was, I believe, 

 unknown before 1840, and yet the resemblance between 

 the pattern of the sponge and that of the chair is so 

 startling, that the most unobservant cannot fail to 

 notice it. 



