SPONGE WEAVERS. in 



fallacies in our own day flourish for awhile upon this 

 fundamental error, but time and experience settles 

 the question at last. 



It is by no means astonishing that the majority of 

 persons, not being naturalists, should at the mention 

 of the name of a sponge at once associate it with 

 those soft, flexible, and very useful little articles 

 which accompany a bath, or dangled by a string to 

 their slates in school-boy days. And certainly these 

 are sponges of a certain kind ; but the general idea 

 of a " sponge " must include more than this. Not 

 only must it include all the many varieties of sponges, 

 good, bad, and indifferent, which are employed for 

 ablutionary purposes, but also very many others 

 which could not by any possibility be converted to 

 such a use. Nearly every local museum exhibits, as 

 one of its choice treasures, a gigantic "Neptune's 

 goblet," in shape somewhat like a goblet or vase, 

 perhaps as much as three feet high, and more than a 

 foot in diameter, and this is also a sponge. Then, 

 again, those elegant white, latticed, horn-shaped 

 objects, called " Venus's Flower - basket " (fig. 15), 

 which occupy a more favoured position in the local 

 museum, or stand exposed for sale in the window of 

 any " naturalist " of moderate pretensions, are also 

 sponges, but not washing sponges. Indeed, there 

 are sponges of all sizes, innumerable forms, and 

 varied characteristics, which scientific people class 



