JETSAM 347 



meaning of the dimorphism), and it has an intricate life- 

 history. 



Much higher in the scale of being are the sponges, such 

 as " Mermaids' Gloves," " Elephant Ears," " Crumb of 

 Bread," and the like, to give them their quaint but not 

 inappropriate popular names. They have been wrenched 

 away from their anchorage and tossed up on the beach. 

 We cannot look at them with irreverence, for the sponges 

 were the first animals to be successful in having a " body " ; 

 and, though they have no organs, they illustrate tissues in 

 the making. We try a piece against our skin, and discover 

 in its rasping effect why even large British forms are of no 

 use for toilet purposes. From a zoological point of view, it 

 is profitable to scrutinise a big sponge carefully, for there 

 are sometimes interesting creatures in its recesses. A 

 sponge is often a living thicket, in which small animals play 

 hide-and-seek. 



Even more plant-like than the sponges are the zoo- 

 phytes, which we find so abundantly among the piled-up 

 seaweed or growing on it colonies of polyps protected 

 within a firm tubular investment, often aborescent in their 

 mode of growth, and always fascinatingly beautiful. 

 There is something suggestive in the technical names of 

 the great types Tubularians, Campanularians, Sertu- 

 larians, and Plumularians, or in the popular names like " sea- 

 fir." Very plant-like, indeed, most of them appear; but that 

 is again only a superficial resemblance of "convergence," 

 as observation of the living creatures makes plain, for 

 they have mouths and food-canals, waving tentacles and 

 stinging lassos, and many of them bud off swimming-bells 

 or medusoids, which swim in the Summer seas like miniature 

 jelly-fishes. 



Sometimes the whole of the flat beach is thickly strewn 

 with true jelly-fishes a distinctive element in the Summer 



