72 TOILERS IN THE SEA. 



shaped handles, adhering to its sides in a clumsy way ; 

 in another example the nose-like protuberances 

 enlarge, thicken, become wrinkled, and, however 

 droll-looking, militate sadly against one's ideas of 

 elegance. Yet look again and again, and in some 

 favourably well-grown individual, lo ! there are the 

 clumsy excrescences lengthened out, curved, refined 

 and developed into supports, worthy of the famed 

 Delphic tripod of the Pythian priestess ; the gently 

 swelling ends of the feet, meanwhile, indicating appear- 

 ances as of little reservoirs, or deposits of material, 

 accumulating for future use, either as buds, or for 

 some further development. Again, in some of the 

 pyramid or obelisk shapes, the fenestr t ne, small at the 

 apex, widen more and more towards the base, and a 

 fine inner lattice work is seen to line these too-wide- 

 open windows. But the variations in form assumed 

 by these cunning artificers are far too numerous to 

 mention ; and although they do not work by mathe- 

 matical rules and compasses, as has been sometimes 

 represented, they have within themselves a mysterious 

 unerring rule, which guides every thread, every particle 

 of internal sarcode, or external silex, into the position, 

 shape, and size, best suited to the situation, surround- 

 ing circumstances, and requirements of each in- 

 dividual organism." l 



1 "A Popular Description of Polycystins," by P. S. Bury, in 

 Science-Gossip^ May i, 1865. 



