366 TOILERS IN THE SEA. 



Another vigorous opponent of the burrowing 

 capacity of sponges is Mr. J. G. Waller, who has 

 criticised the arguments adduced in its favour, and 

 endeavoured to establish not only the improbability, 

 but the impossibility of the operation. He says : " I 

 have endeavoured to show that the solution of the 

 question is, and must be, in the mode of working the 

 burrows. The markings I have attempted to de- 

 scribe, can be demonstrated to be made by a hard 

 tool, working in the segment of a circle, to which I 

 have drawn attention, as shown by the Scolytus. 

 And that such should be mimicked by a sponge, a 

 creature so far down in the scale, would be, if proved, 

 one of the most extraordinary marvels in natural 

 history. It would be altogether without parallel, and 

 it therefore requires the most absolute proofs before 

 it should be accepted. No imaginative dream, no 

 assumption, no jumping to conclusions, because 

 minor points are not understood, can support such a 

 theory, in the face of hard and tangible facts, in full 

 agreement with well-known precedents." And thus 

 he finally sums up by stating his propositions : " If 

 it can be shown that the sponge is not always in the 

 burrows, even as a whole or a part, there is an end of 

 the theory of a ' boring ' sponge. If the limestone 

 burrows at Babbicombe never exhibit traces of the 

 sponge, the theory is also at an end, for no one can 

 doubt but that a similar creature made these. If it 



